Getting My Students Prepared

How do you introduce second graders to climate change? With Winston! I read my students the book, Winston of Churchill: One Bear's Battle Against Global Warming. This book is a treasure. I can not thank Jean Davies Okimoto enough for writing this book. Winston is a polar bear who rallies the other polar bears to protest global warming. He makes a book and explains how global warming is happening. Winston and the polar bears tell the tourists the ice and their homes are melting and they need the humans help to stop this climate change. After hearing about my expedition, the students were excited and very curious.

The students have many questions for me?
Will I sleep in an igloo?
How will I videoconference? How will the microphone work?
Can I bring back a little bit of the arctic in a cooler?

The students and I have gone on to do some more research in order to prepare for our joint journey to Canada. The students will follow me through my blog and videoconferences.

We tracked my trip North with the help of Google Earth.

Then we watched a video on BrainPop. Tim and Moby taught us about the climate and landscape in the Arctic Tundra. It is cold with the temperatures varying from -32 to -70 degrees Celsius (which is -26 to -94 degrees Fahrenheit). There is not much snow in the tundra so it is nicknamed the cold desert. We learned a new robust vocabulary word: permafrost. Permafrost is a layer of soil beneath the surface that stays frozen solid all year long. I will be doing research on the permafrost when I arrive in Churchill. Tim and Moby also told us what animals I have a chance of seeing in the Arctic Tundra: polar bears, reindeer, wolves, caribou, lemmings, arctic hares and more. (I am keeping my fingers crossed to see some arctic animals.)


We learned about climate change from some amazing pictures from National Geographic. The warmer temperatures in the Arctic are changing the environment and affecting the animals that live there. You can watch and hear about a few of the animals that live in this habitat: caribou, polar bears, snowy owls, and tundra swans.