A busy day in Resolute Bay...
After breakfast, we headed off to school to meet with Brian Manning (the principal) and Tracey MacMillan (the outreach coordinator) and make plans for our visit to Qarmartalik school. We had three of the Ice Warriors group with us. They were in Resolute Bay to train for a trek to the geomagnetic pole that will take place next year. This was a chance to test their limits and see if they will be able to really participate in the trek.
Tracey gave our group a tour of the school and introduced the new members of the ACE team to the range of outreach programs that occur at Qarmartalik. We got to visit each of the classes and see what they were doing. Then, we met with Brian to talk about the outreach philosophy of the school. Tracey and I sat down to work out the schedule and figure out how to fit in all of the classes around the cultural activities that were happening during our visit. We also took a look at the science classroom that we will use for our workshops.
Once we had a plan devised, we headed back to South Camp for lunch and a quick re-jigging of the plans. We had expected that we would be working with the two oldest classes today. However, that didn't fit as well around the cultural and traditional skills classes. So we will go from one extreme to the other and see the Grade 9-12 class after lunch and the Grade 1-2 class after afternoon recess. We quickly picked up the materials we needed for the afternoon’s activities and headed back to school. Also, we helped out one of the polar explorers staying at Aziz's by backing up the pictures off of his camera using the handy card reading ports on Jeff's computer. I think that Jeff and Tobias have made a new best friend.
With the Grade 9-12 class, we talked about climate change science and the types of measurements that can be made using atmospheric remote sensing instruments from satellites to ice cores and more. We tried to make this presentation complement the work we had done last year on ozone depletion. For this class, we did a data analysis activity where they looked at 40 years of monthly average temperature data (minimum, maximum and mean) for three different sites (Resolute Bay, Vancouver and Ottawa). Each team had to determine the minima and maxima for each data set and describe how these had changed over the time period. The three groups worked with their data sets and then had to give a presentation to the rest of the class on what they had learned. It was interesting to watch them figure out the trends and try to describe them in a clear way. We were happy that the activity went very well and we had a good response from the students. Thanks to teachers Earl and Jennifer, and student support assistant Jeffrey for their help during the class. It was great to talk to Earl about how this activity fits with what they have already learned in math and science and how he can use it later to talk about graphing and trends. I had hoped that our workshops would be able to fit in with the school curriculum in this way.
After a quick break for recess, one could say we went from the sublime to the ridiculous. The Grade 1-2 class brought their enthusiasm in with them so we jumped right in. We gave a short but very interactive presentation on weather and how to measure it. Tobias had taken some pictures of the weather station instruments at the airport on the day we arrived so these were included in the talk. We also talked about satellites that look down on Earth to help measure the weather. Next, the task was to make mobiles that reminded us of all of the weather stuff we had been talking about. So we could make clouds, snowflakes, rainbows, suns, raindrops, and even wind socks. Everyone got to cut out their symbols and make a mobile. Unfortunately, we got a little carried away so the class got back to Christine, their teacher, 5 minutes late! I think that the students had as much fun as we did with this workshop. It was nice to be able to talk to each of the students about what they were doing. Thank you very much to Ragilee, Martha and Jeff for helping to control the chaos! I hope that the new words that everyone learned ("precipitation" and "anemometer") lasted in the students' memories longer than the time it took to take a picture (we were using these words instead of "Cheese!").
We staggered back to Aziz's for dinner and a final push to finish the talks for tomorrow. I predicted that we only needed an hour. That would have been enough time if my computer could stay connected to the internet for longer than 2 minutes. Finally, we were able to get all of the space and satellite pictures that we needed for the three remaining talks. The team was able to go to bed early and savour their well deserved rest. I thank them for their hard work in preparing for and giving the workshops at Qarmartalik and Umimmak schools. It really made it a great experience for the students!
Now only if I would finish the work I have to do for people down South as quickly...
Best regards,
Kaley.