Final Project blog

Final Project Essential Question:

How can digital resources and effective teaching methods be used to integrate Alaska Native ways of knowing and Western scientific methods in order to create greater understanding of, and interest in, geosciences for students?

Lesson / unit ideas:

Enduring Understandings:
Climate change is occurring in the Anchorage Bowl area, and is impacting organisms in the local community. People can have a positive effect in mitigating climate changes.

Essential Questions:
How is the climate changing in the Anchorage Bowl? How will these changes impact the living organisms (including humans) in our area? What can you do to mitigate these impacts?

Unit Objectives / Goals:

Students will collect data about local climate change from both Western and Native experts, using a combination of personal interviews and research. They will analyze data from all their sources to summarize what climate changes are occurring in the Anchorage Bowl area. Finally, students will come up with a plan to mitigate the climate changes they have identified.

Rationale for lesson / unit:

Students in my school are an interesting mix of kids who are very active in and aware of their natural surroundings and typical “city kids” who hardly know what a moose looks like and say “EEEW!” when they get dirt on their shoes. Studying the effects of climate change on their own local area and the organisms (including humans) that live there is a way to engage both groups of kids. This is also a way to expose both groups of kids to the value of local expertise / Native ways of knowing as well as giving them experience in doing research by more western methods. Finally, students need to realize that humans can affect their local environment, both positively and negatively. Once they have identified the problems, they have a responsibility to do what they can to help solve them.

Links to resources used:

Online climate research:
http://easthighlibrary.wikispaces.com/
This site has links to many databases as well as guidelines for doing better internet searches, citing resources, etc.

http://www.rssweather.com/climate/Alaska/Anchorage/
http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/climate.php
These two sites are a sampling of the web sites that have information specific to the Anchorage area. Many others are available.


Personal interviews / research:
http://www.nativescience.org/issues/tk.htm
This site defines traditional knowledge and does a great side-by-side comparison with western scientific knowledge.

http://elders.uaa.alaska.edu/reports/yr2_3listening.pdf
This document is useful in describing the importance of listening in the Alaska Native tradition, as well as describing what it really means to be an Elder in a community.

http://www.teachersdomain.org/asset/ean08_doc_lpaelderint/
http://www.teachersdomain.org/asset/ean08_doc_lpaelderroom/
These two sites give excellent guidelines for how to respectfully request and conduct an interview with an Elder or other community member.


Teachers’ Domain resources:
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/ipy07.sci.ess.earthsys.arcticland/
“Changing Arctic Landscape”

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/ipy07.sci.ess.watcyc.saobclimate/
“Observations of Climate Change”

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/ean08.sci.ess.earthsys.sanature/
“Take Action for Nature and Your Community”


Mitigation resources:
These resources differ depending on what the students elect to try to change. However, here are some useful general resources for mitigation based on reducing human impacts:

Personal water use conservation:
http://www.awwu.biz/website/environment/environment_frame.htm

Water quality monitoring:
http://anchoragecreeks.org/pages/monitoring_adoptastream.php
http://anchoragecreeks.org/pages/action_main.php

Energy conservation:
http://earth911.com/location/california/flex-your-power/

Anchorage solid waste recycling;
http://www.muni.org/departments/sws/pages/default.aspx