Polar News and Notes Technology

Have you ever felt confused by the complexity of the polar regions? Or realized that your knowledge just scratches the surface of these far-off places? If you have, you are certainly in good company. All of us - especially the project staff at Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears - have been confronted with our lack of understanding […]

Interested in refining your teaching practice? Using science notebooks? Creating a web site or publishing a resource list for students or parents? Helping English Language Learners develop science and academic vocabulary? Check out the Professional Learning department in Issue 4 of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears - Weather and Climate: From Home to the Poles. In […]

Interested in integrating science and literacy? Need to find quality children’s literature and expository text to use in your classroom? Check out Issue 3 of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears - Polar Patterns: Day, Night, and Seasons!
In this issue:
Learn about cause and effect relationships and strategies to help your students master this difficult concept.
Integrate literacy […]

As the school year draws to a close, many teachers and parents wonder how to promote continued learning over the three month holiday. Summer reading lists are a staple of many schools, and local libraries often offer summer reading programs with fun incentives. ReadWriteThink, a a partnership between the International Reading Association (IRA), the National […]

Nancy Etchemendy
On May 26, 2008, published author Nancy Etchemendy will embark on the journey of a lifetime: the first of two research expeditions to Antarctica. On her blog, Etchmendy describes how an “unlikely series of events” resulted in an invitation to join the marine biology expeditions. The trip in May is a month-long voyage aboard the National […]

Six musk ox are roaming along the shores of the Chukchi and northern Bering Seas wearing their new GPS collars.
The Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups outfitted the animals to study how climate change may affect them. Next year in the four-year project, the research team will collar an additional 30-40 more animals.
“Musk ox are […]

Interested in teaching your students about patterns found in seasons and day and night? Check out Issue 3 of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears - Polar Patterns, Day, Night, and Seasons!
In this issue:
Learn more about seasons and discover sites to develop your own content knowledge.
Find integrated science and literacy lessons to use in your classroom.
Learn […]

The northern lights over Kulusuk, a small island on the east coast of Greenland. Photo courtesy of Nick Russill and subject to a Creative Commons license.
Want to learn more about the northern and southern lights - the aurora? Look to Issue 3 of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears - Polar Patterns, Day, Night, and Seasons!
In […]

A new month brings a new issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine! The online magazine is written for elementary teachers to help develop their content knowledge of the polar regions and use best practices in integrating science and literacy instruction. Our second issue is called “Polar Patterns: Day, Night, and Seasons” and […]

Working with National Science Foundation-funded researchers, two high school graduates have built an underwater, camera-equipped “rover” to observe fish in Antarctic environments.
Ryan Garner and Amanda Wilson, both female graduates of Cabrillo High School in Lompoc, California, began working with marine biologist Gretchen Hofmann of the University of California, Santa Barbara, when they were high-school seniors. […]