Background  

ALISON Activities

Teachers who participate in ALISON will run an ice and snow observatory for at least one winter. All participants are encouraged to run an observatory for more than one winter and will receive the support necessary to do this.

To run an ALISON observatory you could create a team with your fellow teachers and teachers’ aides, and break down barriers between grade levels and disciplines. An ALISON observatory is a hands-on activity for students to learn about scientific inquiry through regular measurement and study of familiar materials. It’s an opportunity to get parents and the community involved in a school science education activity that serves polar research.

Running an observatory means making measurements of snow depth, temperature and density, and ice thickness on a regular basis, preferably once per week. We will provide the equipment for making these measurements. One of us will visit each teacher in the fall to help set up the observatory and provide training in making the measurements and entering the data into the computer. A second site visit will be made in the spring to allow the teacher, students and scientist to engage in scientific inquiry together and promote the sense of community and partnership. The data from each observatory will be available at this Web site for all ALISON members to use in their classrooms.

We will communicate by e-mail and teleconference during the winter. Each summer, a 7-day workshop will be held to allow members of the network to meet face-to-face and develop the professional learning community. The workshop will provide each teacher with the opportunity to share the results of their research experience and how they have transferred it to the classroom. We will discuss science and mathematics standards, and work together to develop standards-based classroom materials and activities.

We will begin to develop talks and/or posters for presentation at professional meetings. Guest speakers will tell us about their research into snow, ice and polar environmental change. We will organize field trips to places like the Permafrost Tunnel at Fox and the Poker Flat Research Range. Travel assistance for attending the workshops will be available.

Participants will be able to register for UAF credits for different parts of the program. For example, you could treat the winter research experience as an independent study for UAF credit and attend the summer workshop for UAF credit. In due course, we also plan to offer UAF credit classes related to snow and ice science and education by distance delivery each winter.