Department of Earth Sciences, Climate Change Institute
University of Maine
Rapid changes in Greenland outlet glaciers part of NAGT:Teaching Resources:Teaching Materials Collection
I've designed a website to educate students and teachers about how glaciers flow, how they are changing, and why these changes are important to us.
Modeling Glacier Dynamics with Flubber part of NAGT:Teaching Resources:Teaching Materials Collection
We created a hands-on activity for middle and high school students that describes glacier mass balance in a changing climate. The students make a glacier using glue, water and detergent ("flubber") and construct a glacier valley using plastic sheeting. They are encouraged to run several tests with different values for valley slope, "flubber" temperature, and basal conditions. The students then calculate the "flubber" velocity for each scenario. We compare our glacier models to the dynamics of real glaciers and discuss how and why they might be changing over time.
