This article describes common misconceptions held by elementary students about the cause of day and night and seasons. The article provides ideas for formative assessment, teaching strategies, and the National Science Education Standards.

In this classroom activity, students record the temperatures in and around a walk-in refrigerator or freezer to see how cold air behaves when it meets warmer air. The printable five-page handout includes a series of inquiry-based questions to get students thinking about how the temperature of air changes its density, detailed experiment directions and a worksheet that helps students use the experiment results to obtain insight into the wind patterns of Antarctica.

This article provides links to web sites that describe the Arctic and Antarctica in terms of geography, climate, and ecosystems.

This project is designed based on 21st century skills and to help students engage in, experience, explore and evolve science. As a part of the activity students create a digital poster (infographic) using free online websites, such as: Piktochart, Checkthis, Glogster, Infogram, Easelly, Visually. They are not allowed to use powerpoint, learning to use these websites is one of the objectives of the activity.
Students are provided information on Copyright protection and Creative Commons, Referencing and Grading Criteria of the digital poster.
Students are assigned one mineral and 1 rock from each category of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic to describe on the digital poster.
Information provided in the textbook and power points such as physical and chemical properties ( included but not limited to: chemical composition, density, texture, color, etc.) and 1 or 2 images of each sample should be included on the poster. Also they are advised to add the most common uses of the samples or any other information that they find interesting, which they may find this information in class material or they may have to do a little research. If they use sources other than class material, they need to cite their references.

This article recounts the events on the day in 1990 when Dr. David Elliot, an Ohio State geologist, found a dinosaur fossil high in the Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica.

In this video adapted from ANDRILL, find out how geoscientists get through more than a dozen football fields of ice and water in order to study the rock and sediment beneath Antarctica.

DATA: SHALDRIL Core Data; NOAA Pollen data TOOL: GeoMapApp SUMMARY: Import Antarctic sediment core data files into GeoMapApp to create maps and graphs. Use data to infer past climate conditions based on current vegetation distributions.

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Learn about the different features of snow and ice in Antarctica using satellite imagery in this video segment adapted from NASA.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores the Sun's role in warming Earth, the albedo (reflectivity) of Earth's diverse surfaces, and how the decline of Arctic sea ice is affecting Earth's energy balance. Science lessons introduce the concepts of solar energy, reflection, and absorption to elementary students. The issue also includes an overview of the natural resources and energy sources found in the polar regions as well as lessons that allow students to develop the concepts of natural resources, energy sources, and energy efficiency.

This online article provides a firsthand report of Ernest Shackleton's epic 800-mile ocean crossing. In 1914, Shackleton planned to cross the continent of Antarctica from one sea to the other. One day's sail away from the continent, his specially constructed ship, the Endurance, was trapped in pack ice; 281 days later, crushed, the boat sank. The fifty-six-man crew survived as castaways on the ice for five months, after which Shackleton led them some 180 miles to the relative safety of Elephant Island. He and five men then embarked on an epic, 800-mile ocean crossing to South Georgia Island, the nearest inhabited area, in a twenty-two-foot lifeboat called the James Caird. This article is an account of that journey.

In this classroom activity, students work in groups to test a variety of fabrics to determine each one's effectiveness as an insulator. The printable five-page handout includes a series of inquiry-based questions to get students thinking about the conditions in Antarctica and the properties of specialty fabrics, illustrated activity directions and a worksheet that includes areas for recording their experiment data, and questions that prompt students to compare their results against their original hypotheses.

This article discusses the many lichens found in the Arctic and Antarctica and their unique characteristics.

Weddell seals have a large repertoire of very strange vocalizations–everything from chugs, chirps, trills, and whistles to what sounds like something from outer space. Weddells make these sounds both underwater and on top of the sea ice. Our soundtrack composer Steve Perez used hydrophone recordings the project obtained under NMFS Permit 1032-1917 to interweave with guitar and midi to create an other-worldly composition consisting of some of those Weddell seal vocalizations recorded by the Weddell Population Ecology project. Video field footage obtained by project members Eric Boyd and Terrill Paterson under NMFS Permit 17236. Video editing and production by Mary Lynn Price. Learn more at WeddellSealScience.com!

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Microorganisms exist in nearly every part of our planet, including areas that can barely support life. The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica were considered lifeless until microbial communities were found inside porous rocks. Little is known about the evolution, diversity, and genetics of these exclusive cryptoendolithic life-forms. Recently, researchers used sequencing technology to generate microbial metagenomes from Antarctic rocks. They obtained 497 bacterial genomes from 269 previously uncharacterized candidate species. “Candidatus Jiangella antarctica” may be adapted to severe conditions, as it was found in all samples and contained additional genes. Most of the new species diverged from their known relatives 1.2 billion to 410 million years ago, long before the origin of modern Antarctica, and the Antarctic bacteria are functionally distinct from their closest known relatives, suggesting that groups of cold-adapted bacteria arrived when Antarctica became cold, spread, and diversified..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"As global warming persists, it’s becoming clear that even the smallest forms of life need protection, including in the cold deserts of Antarctica. But scientists know very little about the microbes that make their home in Antarctic soil, leaving the picture of biodiversity and ecological change in this region incomplete. Now, researchers from Australia are filling in the blanks. They’ve conducted the first-ever microbial biodiversity report for two Antarctic regions: the extremely dry Vestfold Hills and the Windmill Islands. Bacterial communities in both areas were dominated by microbes of the metabolically and physiologically diverse phylum Actinobacteria, but the Vestfold Hills showed a higher prevalence of members of the Bacteriodetes phylum, likely due to the saltier soils found in this region. Overall, the observed diversity of community members suggests that microbes have found a way to share their environment equitably..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This article provides science content knowledge about forces that shape the Earth's surface: erosion by wind, water, and ice, volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics and how these forces affect Earth's polar regions.

This article describes a researcher's history of studying sea ice and the dynamic nature of observed changes to the sea ice in the polar regions.

This article provides links to standards-based science and literacy lessons about weather, climate, polar climates, and climate change.

This article, written for students in grades 4-5, discusses the world's most southern active volcano, Mt. Erebus of Antarctica. Modified versions are available for students in younger grades.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Life in cold environments dominates Earth’s biosphere, where microbial activity plays a large role in biogeochemical cycles. 120 metagenomes from Ace Lake in East Antarctica were analyzed for a seasonal cycle and four summers over 10 years to determine how the polar light cycle affects microbial-driven nutrient cycles. The two most abundant taxa found were green sulfur bacteria (GSB) and cyanobacteria, both of which are highly influenced by light availability. Interestingly, the abundance of one important GSB member, Chlorobium, dropped significantly in winter before rebounding back to high levels in the spring. Although viruses specific for these microbes were abundant, the negative impact of viral infection on host growth appeared to be limited..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.