Follow our expedition and participate in the adventure by trying out age-appropriate investigations related to our field research.
We have prepared roughly weekly activities at 3 levels: level 1 is good for preschoolers/kindergarten, level 2 for primary school, and level 3 for 10 to 100 years old.
In a class, you’ll be able to introduce the topic with a story from the blog post, which will include field pictures, and then, follow up with the activity if you have time. You are encouraged to respond to the posts with the activity you tuned for your class, or with examples of the outcome. If responding on the website is not your thing, you can submit your answers to antarcticaproject2022@gmail.com
People or groups that have answered to the largest number of challenges will enter a draw to win a picture of Antarctica signed by the team. (There is no deadline, you can always submit answers to older posts).
10 Nov: Departure (by plane): Where is Antarctica?
Activities – https://blogs.ubc.ca/antarctica2022/2022/11/10/outreach-activity-1-where-is-antarctica/
Blog posts
Level 1: The Earth is round, and Antarctica is all the way at the bottom. How do we travel to the other end of the Earth?
Level 2: How big is Antarctica? Compare the size of Antarctica with the size of BC or the size of France. Make a collage to see how many times you can fit your province on the Antarctic map.
Level 3: What did the first map of Antarctica look like? Find (on the internet) an old map, with its date, and find the story of the expedition that produced it.
14 Nov: (DDU) Who lives in Antarctica?
1. Learn about animals of the Southern ocean? Penguins, seals, whales, krill, birds (skua, snow Petrels, Albatros).
2. Which of these animals live both in the Southern and Northern hemispheres?
3. Who is allowed to go to Antarctica, and what can they do there? Research some facts about the Antarctic Treaty.
21 Nov (D47): The wind
1. How do we know that it is windy outside? What are the signs of wind in a picture?
2. Make a drawing of a windy landscape
3. (meteorology) Where does the wind come from? In your region, does wind have a dominant direction? Do you know why? Does this wind have a name? Tell us the story of your wind.
4. (construction) How do we measure wind? Build your own anemometer: a flag, some caps, a wind vein, be creative!
28 Nov (D47): The air
1. Air is not empty. Discuss that we can fill air when we fill up a balloon, or when we blow on our skin. Do a breathing exercise to feel the lungs filling in and out.
2. What are the main components of the air? What do we need to breathe? If appropriate, discuss photosynthesis and respiration, oxygen and CO2, and how air is essential to life.
3. (chemistry) Who and when did we discover what was in the air? Tell us a story of the discovery of a component of the air (Wikipedia will be of great help)
4. Why is it difficult to breathe at high altitudes?
5 Dec (D47): Water and the water cycle
1. Liquid water and ice are the same thing. Make an experiment melting ice cubes and discuss the fact that matter can be solid or liquid. Once the ice cubes are melted, how can we make them solid again? Use these observations to discuss when it rains and when it snows.
2. Where does all the snow that falls in Antarctica come from? Make a drawing of the water cycle: evaporation from the ocean, precipitation on the ice sheet, ice flow, icebergs melting returning water to the ocean.
3. Where are the water reservoirs on Earth? Where does your tap water come from? Do you know how this resource will change with climate change?
12 Dec (D47) Storms
1. How do we get dressed when the weather is stormy? make a collage
3. Why are there more storms in winter than in summer? How do meteorologists predict storms?
19 Dec (D 47): Where am I? Latitude and longitude
1. Make a game to learn right and left, or more advanced, to learn north/south/east/west
2. Mark on the map the itinerary of the expedition with latitude and longitude. What is the latitude and longitude of your school?
3. How does a GPS function?
4. How did we figure out where we were before GPS?
26 Dec (Raid): Snow travel
1. What is your preferred way to move through snow?
3. During the South pole race in 1912, Scott and Amundsend made different decisions regarding their transportation, which ones?
2 Jan (Concordia): Living in a research station
1-2. If you could invent a polar research station, what would be in it? Make a drawing.
3. To change things up, it’s your turn to ask questions about Antarctic life
9 Jan (LDC): Ice Cores
1-2: make your own ice core with layers of either play dough of different colours, or fudge, and then make a core with a straw. If straws are not accessible anymore, you can make your own ice core in a small clear glass.
3. Research on all of the climate parameters that we can reconstruct from ice cores. Choose one and write about it.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Paleoclimatology_IceCores
16 Jan (LDC): Snow crystals and bubble shapes
One of the core goals of our research is to link the shape of bubbles in Antarctic ice with the local insolation.
1. Drawing about snow crystal shapes
2. (experiment) From snow to ice: get some marshmallows in a large clear cup, and squeeze on them from the top. What happens to the holes in between the marshmallows? Take pictures! This is how polar ice traps air in bubbles.
3. What is ice density? How much air is in it? If I need 10mL of air for my measurements, how much ice do I need to melt?
23 Jan (LDC): Ice age cycles
1. Discovers prehistorical animals, like the woolly mammoth, from cave paintings.
2. Investigate the natural environment during prehistorical times, what was different?
3.1 What was the global mean temperature at the last glacial maximum? How does it compare to the projections for the end of the century?
3.2 What is the difference in CO2 concentration between the last glacial maximum and 1900? and between 1900 and today? Can you comment on this comparison?
3.3 Do you know why we have ice age cycles? Google “Milankovitch theory” or “orbital cycles” to find out. Share with us your favourite resource.
30 Jan (Concordia): the midnight sun
1. Discuss the length of days between summer and winter.
2. How is it possible that we have 24hr of sunlight in Antarctica? With the help of a balloon, explain the tilt and the seasons. Can you also figure out why when it is winter in Canada, it is summer in Australia?
3. Can you explain why, although the shortest day of the year is Dec 21st, the coldest time of the year is usually mid January?