Climate Change and Arctic Ecosystems

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In this activity, students learn about how climate change is affecting the Arctic ecosystem and then investigate how this change is impacting polar bear populations. Students analyze maps of Arctic sea ice, temperature graphs, and polar bear population data to answer questions about the impact of climate change on the Arctic ecosystem.

HS-LS2-2 Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.

MS-LS2-4 Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.

Moreover, anthropogenic changes (induced by human activity) in the environment—including habitat destruction, pollution, introduction of invasive species, overexploitation, and climate change—can disrupt an ecosystem and threaten the survival of some species.

Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations.

Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.

Much of science deals with constructing explanations of how things change and how they remain stable.

When investigating or describing a system, the boundaries and initial conditions of the system need to be defined and their inputs and outputs analyzed and described using models.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed—it only moves between one place and another place, between objects and/or fields, or between systems.

Feedback (negative or positive) can stabilize or destabilize a system.

Cause and effect relationships may be used to predict phenomena in natural or designed systems.

Energy drives the cycling of matter within and between systems.

The transfer of energy can be tracked as energy flows through a designed or natural system.

Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible.

Graphs, charts, and images can be used to identify patterns in data.

Explanations of stability and change in natural or designed systems can be constructed by examining the changes over time and processes at different scales, including the atomic scale.

Within a natural or designed system, the transfer of energy drives the motion and/or cycling of matter.

Changes in systems may have various causes that may not have equal effects.

Mathematical representations are needed to identify some patterns.

Systems in dynamic equilibrium are stable due to a balance of feedback mechanisms.

Climate Change and Arctic Ecosystems

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