Does sea ice matter?
Lesson Element supporting PowerPoint
Is there more to polar environments than ice?
Just a minute
What do you remember about Arctic ecosystems?
Discuss in a pair for 1 minute
Did you know…
• That the Arctic is essentially an ocean surrounded by land
• That much of the ice is sea ice – some of which is permanently
frozen and some that retreats in spring and summer, so the total
amount of ice is variable through the year
• That melting sea ice does not cause sea level rise (think of an
ice cube in a glass of water) – it is melting land ice that causes
variation in sea volume
Your home investigation task
• Create a collage of images to show ‘why sea ice matters’ in the
Arctic , include annotations.
• Don’t worry all will become clear after we work through the
following activities…
Arctic Bingo
Choose six of these words and write them in your grid
Tundra
Humus
Biome
Temperature range
Habitat
Ecosystem
Transpiration
Permafrost
Waterlogged
Adaptation
Arctic Bingo
• I will read out the definitions, without saying the word. If you think
you have that word written in your grid cross it out
• The first person to cross out all six shouts Bingo!
Answers
Term
Definition
Tundra
Climate type characterised by extreme cold, low temperatures
and frozen soils
Humus
Organic material formed by the breakdown of plant matter
Biome
A community of plants and animals that occurs naturally together
Temperature range
The difference between highest and lowest average annual
temperature
Habitat
The place where a plant or animal lives
Ecosystem
The plants and animals that live in a specific place
Transpiration
The loss of water through pores in the leaves of plants
Permafrost
Ground (rock and soil) which is below freezing (below 0oC)
Waterlogged
Pore spaces in soil are filled with water
Adaptation
Characteristics of a plant or animal that make it suited to it’s
environment
Does sea ice matter?
Krill live in specific ocean habitats
with a specific temperature range.
•
Working in pairs you will need a set of mystery
•
answer the question: Does sea ice matter?
•
It may help to refer back to the food web
•
You can cut out and re-sort, colour-code, devise
a key to help you categorise.
•
You will need to make connections between
pieces of information on different cards.
winter to help them hide from
winter.
predators such as Snowy owls.
Migration patterns of Snow geese
Ice seal pups must stay with their
and Arctic terns are affected by
mothers on the ice for 6 weeks
blooms of phytoplankton.
after they are born.
Ice seals such as bearded and harp
Global warming will change the
Arctic foxes need sea ice to travel
seals need sea ice to rest, moult
type of vegetation that grows in
for feeding (hunting and
and rear their young.
the Tundra biome.
scavenging) and breeding.
Thinning sea ice allows more
encourages growth of
phytoplankton.
Arctic foxes hunt for lemmings,
the remains of food left by polar
bears.
Be ready to pair share this information
Winter ice provides a safe habitat
for Bowhead whales to give birth.
It protects them from Killer whales.
Changes in feeding and migration
patterns of polar bears, walrus and
seals make it harder for indigenous
people to hunt.
Oil pipelines (built above ground)
Hunting of seals by humans is
disrupt the migration routes of
affecting the polar bears’ food
reindeer.
source.
Polar bears use sea ice for
Arctic ice became 40% thinner
Walrus need sea ice to rest on, and
travelling, mating and hunting.
between the 1950’s and 1990’s.
for breeding.
In spring, sea ice is melting earlier,
and in winter it is freezing later.
Reindeer habitats are threatened
by other land uses such as mining
and wind farms.
•
and do not hibernate in winter.
Lemmings have white coats in
seal pups and voles. They also eat
produced in the previous lesson.
by thinning sea ice.
Lemmings eat leaves and grasses
summer and migrate for food in the
sunlight through which
Find a way to sort/group the cards to try to
indigenous people are threatened
Reindeer graze the tundra in
Ice algae grows on the underside
of sea ice and is eaten by krill.
cards.
The hunting traditions of
Polar bears use dens in snow on
land to give birth.
Reindeer require large areas of
habitat to survive.
Overcrowding of walrus
populations on beaches leads to
deaths of pups.
Reindeer herders make their
income from meat, horns and skins.
Bowhead whales eat krill.
There is now 10-15% less summer
sea ice than in the 1950’s.
The main habitat of polar bears is
sea ice near to ice seal populations.
International borders can form
barriers to nomadic reindeer
herders.
Melting of permafrost is causing
changes in vegetation.
Summarising human impacts: become the examiner
• Write two ‘stretch and challenge’ questions about the range of
impacts that humans are having on the Arctic ecosystem.
• You must also write the number of marks and the success
criteria.
Examples could include:
• Describe how indigenous people impact the Arctic ecosystem?
• Hint: think about the other types of command words you could
use…
To finish
• Join another pair and choose one of their question to answer.
• You will then be peer assessing using the success criteria.