Guided by the 5E model, this lesson allows students to work together to uncover how changes in sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are connected to Earth’s energy budget.

Check out this interactive data visualization and simulation tool.  It explores the impact of collapsing polar ice sheets (Greenland and Antarctica) and their impact on global mean sea level rise, along with shrinkage in the livable area around the world.

Explore and connect to the GLOBE Oceans protocol bundle. 

Be a Scientist: The GLOBE Program encourages you to use GLOBE data to help answer questions about how the environment works.  Through research projects, you can answer your own science questions by creating hypotheses, analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and sharing your results.  Scientific projects that you conduct and that include the use of GLOBE data or protocols can be submitted by your teacher for publication on this GLOBE website. By sharing your findings with the rest of the world you are completing the scientific process.

Steve Nerem is the leader of NASA’s Sea Level Change team. His project, Observation-Driven Projections of Future Regional Sea Level Change, focuses on using NASA satellite and in situ observations and climate modeling to estimate future regional sea level change.

In this lesson, students will investigate the drivers of climate change, including adding carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, sea level rise, and the effect of decreasing sea ice on temperatures.

My NASA Data has recently released several new resources, StoryMaps, for use in educational settings.

This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities.