Svalbard Islands and Our Community

Overview

This inquiry-based activity can be done using the slides of the attached PowerPoint presentation, or using a smart board. The slides describe the phases of the Inquiry Based Learning, step by step. The reference model is the "BSCS 5E model" (Bybee W. et al., 2006).

Objectives

Students will learn about global warming through inquiry-based learning and experimentation.

Lesson Preparation

Prepare materials for the hands-on experiment. Follow instructions and photos starting on slide 11.

Procedure

The Inquiry Based "Pathway"

Slide 1: Title and subtitle

I've chosen a significant title, which gives an idea about the relationship existing between the far North (Svalbard isles in this case) and our Mediterranean Regions. Why is it important to study what happens in the Polar Regions? Leading the proposed activity, the student not living in the Polar Regions can understand that the whole Earth is involved in global warming and most parts of Earth's future depend on what could happen at these latitudes.

Slides 2-­3: Getting Started

The students have to look at the first two pictures (slide 2 and 3), in order to hunt for differences and similarities between them. If you have a smart board, the pictures can be visualized together, side by side. The students can take part in brainstorming, speaking to their classmates, or writing their own opinion on the student notebook. The pictures are shown without revealing where they come from. It is important that the students are elicited in the comparison.

Slide 4: Warming up

The teacher collects opinions from the students. When the brainstorming has finished, it's possible to resume the proposals coming from the students. If you have the smart board, you can write on it. At the end, the teacher confirms evidence.

Slide 5: Initial assignment

The teacher reveals the glaciers' locations (Svalbard and Italy) and the students are invited to find their right position on Earth, using Google Earth. If necessary, the teacher can help them using the smart board, connecting with Google Earth, and showing it to the class. Moreover, the students can lead web research about:

• Different kinds of glaciers on Earth (alpine glaciers and inlands in particular)
• Presence of glaciers vs. altitude at different latitudes
• Wet and cold glaciers
• Different parts of a glacier, their names and their role in establishing a glacier. Alternatively, the teacher can support students with documents containing all basic information.

Slide 6: First outcome

Reflection and research lead students to first outcome. They find general features and behaviors. This step is necessary to carry on further phases of inquiring.

Slide 7: Further input

At this point, the students have to look at the picture with a valley and a lake in foreground. What is this picture concerned with? What are the links between this location and the previous glaciers?

Slide 8: Nothing is what it looks like…

The valley in the picture is artificially filled with hand-­drawn ice. If you have a smart board you can use the "pen" button for drawing ice in the valley (white color, for ice – gray, for crevasses). Looking at this image, the students should argue that the valley and the lake have glacial origins.

Slide 9: Further outcome

Students and teacher collect further outcome: the valley and lake have glacial origin. In fact, the shape of the valley is typically a U. Moreover, the lake is very deep (more than 400 m).

Slide 10: Complete information, test hypothesis

Students have to do extra research about the Lake Como and its origin. In particular, they have to explain why the ancient glacier melted. At this moment, the students start with their working hypothesis and they will validate by hands-­on experimenting.

Slides 11-­12: Exploring by Hands-­on experiment

Here we have the procedure for the experiment. The students can work in small groups. If your freezer is too small, only one glacier will be prepared and the students will do their own observations basing on the behavior of the unique sample. However, it would be preferable if you could prepare at least a glacier for each group plus an extra glacier as control sample. The groups can use extra tools, like lamps, or hairdressers, or light sources (e.g. working close to a window). Every group will record the temperature near the surface of ice with a thermometer.

Slide 13: Observing ice melt

Ice melts gradually. The gravel is transported by fusion water, producing "fluvioglacial deposits". Pouring water on ice, the students can observe that it sinks down because of its density that is higher than the density of ice. The students will observe probably different features in the deposits, like "glacial lakes" "moraines" and "rivers". Each group will collect data about these elements. They can make photos or record a movie during the experiment.

Slide 14: Collecting data

During the experiment, the students collect data about their "glacier" and compare it with the control sample. They measure temperature every ten minutes, positioning the thermometer at 3 cm from the ice surface. At the end, they probably observe that temperature has risen more in their own glacier than in the control sample. If you have a smart board, it is possible to compare the results of all the groups and discuss the outcome of all groups.

Slide 15: Elaborating data

At the end of the experiment, the students have to elaborate their data and provide generalizations. In the slide there are some questions the students have to answer. They have to research information about the global situation, in order to improve their evidence.

Slides 16-­17: Explaining causes of retreat

The students have now to focus on the graph showing global increase of both temperature and CO2 air concentration from 1880 to the present. The graphs are strictly related to each other, if the students already know the greenhouse effect, they can get to the final outcome: the increase of temperature causing retreat of ice cover on Earth is due to the increase of greenhouse gases, like CO2. Otherwise, if the students don't know this effect, this evidence can be an opportunity to begin a further inquiry-­based activity, which can dig deeper into this issue.

Slide 18: Evaluating activity

The final activity is the evaluation. The students could perform a final test, but it is preferable to assess an inquiry-­based activity performing an "authentic assessment", like a presentation or a poster showing the final outcomes to classmates and teacher. Actually, this is the way to assess the work of a true researcher.

Extension

n/a

Resources

Resources listed in PowerPoint presentation.

Assessment

Slide 18 provides assessment suggestions.

Credits

Maddalena Macario, maddalena.macario [at] gmail.com