Arctic Climate Curriculum, Activity 2: Do you really want to visit the Arctic?
by Karin Kirk and Anne Gold
, 
Show caption
Hide![[creative commons]](/images/creativecommons_16.png)
written for CIRES, University of Colorado
Summary
This jigsaw activity is designed for students to become familiar with several datasets of Arctic weather data, collected in Eureka on Ellesmere Island. Students join a role-playing activity to read and interpret graphs while considering the optimal time to plan a research mission to the Arctic.
Collapse
Context
Audience
This activity was designed for high school science students. With adaptations it could be used for middle school students or introductory college students who are not science majors. It was classroom-tested for grades 5 through 12.
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
Students need to have a basic understanding of how to read a line graph and how to do basic unit conversions. Students must also understand seasonal cycles of temperature, daylight, wind, and precipitation.
How the activity is situated in the course
There are three components to the Arctic Climate Curriculum.
This is the second part of a three-part curriculum about Arctic climate. The parts may be used independently or in sequence. In particular, this activity sets the stage for Part 3 in which students plot and analyze Arctic climate data. Part 1 of this sequence allows students to explore Arctic geography, then take hands-on meteorological measurements to learn about how climate data is collected in the Arctic.Activity 1: Exploring the Arctic
Activity 2: Do you really want to visit the Arctic?
Activity 3: Exploring Arctic Climate Data
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
Students will be able to:
- Read and interpret Arctic data graphs.
- Articulate seasonal weather patterns in Arctic datasets.
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
This activity has several opportunities for higher order thinking. Students will:
- Synthesize data from four different datasets to gain a sense for the overall weather conditions throughout the year.
- Determine the optimal time to visit the Arctic, from the point of view various roles.
- Create a measurable definition for "winter."
- Compare Arctic weather to weather in their hometowns.
Other skills goals for this activity
- Role playing: Students consider a collection of weather data from multiple points of view. For example, what would be the best conditions for conducting research on wildflowers, compared to observing and photographing the night sky?
Description of the activity/assignment
This activity kicks off with a warm-up exercise in which students read the NOAA State of the Climate report to learn about the Arctic environment, then propose three questions that they might like to learn about the Arctic. This part of the activity may be assigned as homework.
The main portion of this curriculum is a jigsaw activity that uses datasets for air temperature, wind speed, snow depth, and incoming solar radiation. Students form 'Research Groups' to learn about their assigned weather parameter and to work from a graph to describe how their parameter varies through the year.
Then the groups recombine and form 'Research Teams.' Each team is assigned a different purpose for visiting the Arctic.
The main portion of this curriculum is a jigsaw activity that uses datasets for air temperature, wind speed, snow depth, and incoming solar radiation. Students form 'Research Groups' to learn about their assigned weather parameter and to work from a graph to describe how their parameter varies through the year.
Then the groups recombine and form 'Research Teams.' Each team is assigned a different purpose for visiting the Arctic.
Research Team 1 – Testing a fat-tired bicycle for travel across a snowy surface for field researchThe Research Teams consider each weather parameter to come up with a synthesis of the overall weather in Eureka, then decide when the best time for a trip would be. Because each team has a different role to play, they will come up with different answers.
Research Team 2 – Collecting seeds from Arctic wildflowers
Research Team 3 – Astronomy research and photographing the night sky
Research Team 4 – Annual visit to maintain meteorological instruments at the research station.
Lastly, students work individually to consider whether they, personally, would want to visit the Arctic. They go on to describe how the Arctic weather, particularly the winter, differs from their own hometown.
An optional follow-on activity involves a group project to create an infographic that illustrates the weather in Eureka.Determining whether students have met the goals
Both the Research Groups and Research Teams complete worksheets during the jigsaw portion of the activity. Then students complete an individual reflection that asks them to compare the Arctic winter with winter in their hometown. This structure allows for both group work and independent work.
More information about assessment tools and techniques.Teaching materials and tips
- All of the materials needed to teach this activity are hosted on the CIRES Arctic Climate Curriculum website. Here you will find a teacher's guide, solution set, student worksheets, supporting graphics, datasets and graphs. There is also a video presentation by the research scientists who are currently engaged in the scientific mission upon which these activities are based.
Other Materials
- Arctic Climate Curriculum Overview (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 4.2MB Apr28 14) This document contains an outline of all three parts of the curriculum, describes the rationale behind curriculum development and alignment with Next Generation Science Standards and Colorado Science Standards, and contains a list of all the teaching materials that were developed for this project.
Supporting references/URLs
- Anne U. Gold, Karin Kirk, Deb Morrison, Susan Lynds, Susan Buhr Sullivan, Andrey Grachev & Ola Persson (2015) Arctic Climate Connections Curriculum: A Model for Bringing Authentic Data Into the Classroom, Journal of Geoscience Education, 63:3, 185-197, DOI: 10.5408/14-030.1
