Module V Response

Essential Question: How are climate, cultures, and oceans all connected?

Explain & Extend

Climate, cultures, and oceans are all connected because they are c-o-n-n-e-c-t-e-d through the climate and oceanic systems that have occurred for millions of years. In a nutshell, both coming from Western scientists as well as indigenous peoples are accounts of global warming or the melting of polar ice caps - which in turn affect the climate, the cultures of people affected by these changes, as well as the ocean. This module taught us a significant amount of information about about how oceans are absorbing all of the extra green house gases that are emitted and trapped in the atmosphere, as well as the different ways that solar energy arrives at the Warth's surface, affecting land and ocean differently. I now have a much better understanding of how land has a much lower heat capacity than water and cools and heats easily and quickly. The Earth's oceans appear to play such a large part in the equation because they heat and cool so much slower than land, thus are affected differently but also are able to absorb energy differently. That is about as scientific as I am going to get this go around, as it is all still very new and challenging for me. This module I chose to focus on the angle of how cultures are affected by these changes, and attempted to tie it back into the Alaska Native and Western perspectives on land & climate.

To begin with, there is a TD video titled Inuit Observations of Climate Change that I was unable to upload, but that had some very good examples of how indigenous cultures can be included and made a part of the science of observing and understanding the communities they live in due to their vast knowledge and understanding of the communities they live in. This brought me back to the beginning of this course when we were asked to really think about the values of both ways of knowing. I found a few other articles/NPR broadcasts relating to these issues that I believe speak for themselves:

Inuit Group Confronts Global Warming Threat

Young Alaskan Sees Changing Way of Life

Lastly, I enjoyed the TD video of Dolly Garza and her powerful comments about being involved in the process. She says "I worked on my doctorates because I felt like there needed to be more Native involvement in how policy is developed. The situation that Alaska is facing is for probably the last 5,000 years, the population didn't outstrip the resource. But now the number of users and the uses of Alaska's resources are increasing so much that allocation of the resource has become an issue. You have to be involved in the process of making sure that the historic uses are protected." How powerful is that? I found a little bio information about her on the Alaska Native Science Commission website. She is a great role model for Alaska Native students who are interested in finding careers that will help them protect and maintain their culture.

Upon looking for other cultures that are affected, I found some very interesting sites and articles about indigenous cultures and how they are affected by global warming as well as some of the "solutions" that have been put in place. One such site is the Indigenous Environmental Network, whose goals are to:

1. Educate and empower Indigenous Peoples to address and develop strategies for the protection of our environment, our health, and all life forms - the Circle of Life.
2. Re-affirm our traditional knowledge and respect of natural laws.
3. Recognize, support, and promote environmentally sound lifestyles, economic livelihoods, and to build healthy sustaining Indigenous communities.
4. Commitment to influence policies that affect Indigenous Peoples on a local, tribal, state, regional, national and international level.
5. Include youth and elders in all levels of our work.
6. Protect our human rights to practice our cultural and spiritual beliefs.

Another interesting article about how other cultures are being affected by the changes in the climate and oceans:

Global Warming Solutions are Hurting Indigenous People, says U.N.

Evaluate:

One of the things that was difficult for me as I read through this module was that there was so much vocabulary and terminology that I just didn't know or have any background on. I found myself looking up (or Wikipedia-ing) regular terms that are used within the context of the blog (terrestrial, thermal energy, specific heat capacity, diurnal, and more)! This is not a bad thing, but greatly lengthened the time it took me to look through the various parts of the module because I was constantly looking for more information and/or better diagrams and videos that would help me to better understand all of the new information and concepts.

On a different note, there were so many digital resources with good content value that helped better explain things, and that I can SEE really helping students to visualize and grasp difficult concepts. Just taking this course has helped me to think about using and looking for resources that I already have had access to (Discovery Learning, BrainPop, etc.), and I cannot tell you how many people I have raved to about TeachersDomain.org in the past few months! There were also some that I did not see the value of as much. Here are some examples of both:

• Air vs. Water Heat Capacity YouTube clip was a great resource that helped me better visualize the concept being explained. Before watching the video, I can honestly say I was a little confused but after watching the demonstration it made much more sense to me because I could actually see why.

• Ignite! Learning's What Causes Earth's Seasons? was highly enjoyable, and my students would love it! The catchy music, the easy to understand diagrams, and good yet uncomplicated explanantions are helpful.
• The Coriolis Effect in Bathrooms - disgusting. Need I say more? (The other Coriolis Effect resource with the merry go round was much more useful.)
• Earth in Motion: Seasons (a TD resource that I found and used with my students as we are learning about temperature, climate, seasons, pressure systems, etc.)