Earth’s Biomes, focusing on the Arctic Tundra

At Cogitania’s Saturday Botany workshop fourth graders continued learning about the Earth’s Biomes. Today we focused on the Arctic Tundra.

We conducted an experiment to see whether land or sea ice raises the Arctic ocean water levels. We created an ocean in a large spherical bowl with a piece of land ice in the middle of the ocean. We watched the land ice melt which raised the water levels in the bowl. We also put an iceberg in a cup, observed it melting but found this melting did not raise the water levels.
We viewed some beautiful pictures of Arctic Flora and Fauna and a video about the acceleration of arctic ice melting over time due to global warming. We discussed how global warming is impacting the polar bear’s habitat.