Arctic Climate Curriculum, Activity 3: Exploring Arctic Climate Data
Karin Kirk, Anne Gold, CIRES Education Outreach; University of Colorado Boulder
In this activity, students use authentic Arctic climate data to unravel some causes and effects related to the seasonal melting of the snowpack and to further understand albedo.
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Activity will work well for learning about seasons, especially those of the Arctic, which differ greatly from seasons students in temperate or tropical regions would be familiar with.
Activity introduces positive feedback loops and does a good job of explaining that 'positive' in this usage doesn't equate with 'good', but teachers may want to reinforce this concept.
Activity addresses albedo and the connection with solar radiation, snow and melting, and positive feedbacks.
Students work with actual scientific data and are guided through the interpretation of the data.
Comments from expert scientist:
Scientific strengths:
Great activity!
- asking students to sketch their idea of albedo is a great way for them to really conceptualize
- working with Excel data and plots
- explains very clearly the definition of albedo and how it is measured
- there are lots of supporting materials to guide teachers
Suggestions:
- w/m^2 should be W/m^2 (Capital 'w')
- In my experience teaching albedo I had to often remind students that "shortwave" is the same as "solar" radiation
Students use the variety of data and graphs in the lesson to extrapolate connections among temperature, snowpack, and albedo in an Arctic year.
Makes good use of Excel and provides clear explanations for students to build graphs from the given data.
Good for teaching graphing, using provided Excel data, reading finished graphs, and for extrapolating connections among different sets of related data.
With frequent changes to Excel, be sure to try the directions before assigning to students.
Students will need computer access to Excel to create graphs and see the data provided for use in the lesson.
There are some discrepancies in some of the data, which is explained in the teacher guide.
Teachers who use Google Sheets instead of Excel will need to adapt the activity.
