Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is an online professional development magazine which focuses on preparing elementary teachers to teach polar science concepts while also integrating inquiry-based science and literacy instruction. The project draws on research showing that an integrated approach can improve student achievement in science, as well as in reading comprehension and oral and written discourse abilities. Ultimately, the project seeks to bring the polar regions “closer to home” for elementary teachers and their students.
Join us on a special trip up to Bathurst Island to record birdsongs, and learn about how you can use bird observations to create scientific inquiry in your classroom using ebird.org and birds.cornell.edu/birdsleuth.
Most of our oceans still remain a mystery. Dr. Chris Massell Symons shares how scientists are exploring the depths to uncover their secrets. We'll also find out about a fun song to "lure" your students into learning about our "One Big Ocean."
There is so much information available about climate change that knowing what to do about it becomes overwhelming. Where do you start? What can you do?
Place and Location are two of the five themes of geography and a natural starting point for a study of the Arctic and Antarctica. Location answers the question, "Where am I?" while the study of place asks, "What kind of a place is it?" and, "How does this place connect to my hometown?" This issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears examines how you can introduce the Arctic and Antarctica and use science, geography, literacy, and technology to help your students compare and contrast these two dramatically different areas as well as their own home. Get ready for an adventure as you and your students develop your polar sense of place! Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is an online professional development magazine for elementary teachers which focuses on preparing teachers to teach polar science concepts in an already congested curriculum by integrating inquiry-based science with literacy teaching. Such an integrated approach can increase students' science knowledge, academic language, reading comprehension, and written and oral discourse abilities.
Subject:
Arts, Mathematics and Statistics, Science and Technology, Social Sciences
Eric Muller, science educator for the Exploratorium Teacher Institute in San Francisco, CA, provides a hands-on, "feet-on" way of teaching about volcanoes and the layers of the Earth.
Through a series of short video segments, we interviewed Ross MacPhee, curator in the Department of Mammalogy of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) to give us a basic understanding about polar mammals. A paleomammalogist, he travels around the world studying mammals of the ancient past as well as those of today. In particular, MacPhee studies woolly mammoths, the not-so-distant relatives of our present-day elephants.
We already know why polar bears don't eat penguins, but what do they eat? In this episode, we'll share a simple activity that opens a window to understanding a unique ecosystem as one example of a food chain - the Arctic Ocean.
Dr. Ross MacPhee, curator and researcher at the American Museum of Natural History discusses mammals in this episode. Dr. MacPhee provides content background on the mammals, both past and present of the polar regions, and defines some basic ideas on Arctic mammals, as well as current means of studying mammals in the field.
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