Less Than A Penny

Polar Bears, Ecology and Politics: A Unit Study
(Junior and Senior High Aged Students)

Alaskan Polar Bear

In recent news we've seen a great deal of controversy regarding the listing of Polar Bears on the Endangered Species list. What a terrific opportunity for middle and high school aged students to learn about the process and explore the world where polar bears live, and how their rapidly changing environment may affect them.

A report has been created entitled, "Demographic and Ecological Perspectives on the Status of Polar Bears," by Dr. Mitchell Taylor and Dr. Martha Dowsley. Download or print the pdf for your student. Students should ask themselves the following questions and seek out the answers they are unsure of. [also available in html]

1. What are the requirements for inclusion on the Endangered Species list?
2. Do you feel those requirements are extreme or do you feel they provide an adequate protect for animal species?
3. Does the Polar Bear community meet those criteria? Why? Why not?
4. If the Polar Bear environment continues to change, will polar bears be able to adapt? Why? Why not?
5. Are the polar bears in trouble as a species?
6. What do you think should be done about the situation?

The following links will provide additional information that will help you decide where you stand on the issue.

Resources:

For a brief overview read the Polar Bear Update - Populations and Environments on Right Side News

Although two polar bear subpopulations (Western Hudson Bay and Southern Beaufort Sea) no longer appear to be viable due to reduction in sea ice habitat, polar bears as a species do not appear to be threatened by extinction in the foreseeable future from either a demographic or an ecological perspective.

Ecological perspectives that suggest the reductions to survival and recruitment rates for two populations (Western Hudson Bay and Southern Beaufort Sea) have occurred because of a long-term decline in sea ice due to climate warming. These populations occur where summer ice coverage is seasonal (WH) or divergent (SB).

The perspective that the impacts of sea ice reductions experienced in WH and SB subpopulations can be generalized to the remainder of the polar bear subpopulations depends entirely on the IPCC GCMs that predict continued reductions to sea ice due to CO2 driven climate change. Current and historical polar bear subpopulation performance demonstrates that viable polar bear subpopulations have persisted and generally increased throughout the current period of climate warming.

• About 60 per cent of the world's polar bears live in Canada, the rest in Alaska, Russia, Norway and Greenland. [New Scientist]
• Global warming is causing famine-like conditions for polar bears in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The feeding season is shorter and the ice is thinner -- bears are slowly starving, weak bears are drowning and they are leaving behind orphans. Scientists in Canada are trying to save the species by finding foster families for orphaned cubs. [Spiegel]
• The federal government says climate change threatens the polar bear with extinction, and the efforts under way to arrest global warming will not be adequate to save the mighty Arctic predator. [NPR]
• As the poster child for the climate change generation polar bears have come to symbolise the need to tackle climate change. But their popularity has attracted the attention of global warming sceptics funded by the oil industry, who have started to attack polar bear science. [New Scientist]
• No adequate census exists on which to base a worldwide population estimate, but biologists use a working figure of 20,000 to 25,000 bears with about sixty percent of those living in Canada. [Polar Bears International]
• Implications of Climate: Change in the Management of. Vulnerable Species. - The Case Study of Polar Bears [Climate Science]

Related Polar Bear Lessons & Unit Studies

1. Are Polar Bears in Danger?
2. Polar Bears for Primary Students
3. E-Book: Polar Bears Unit Study
4. A Unit Study on Bears for Grades K-6th
5. Iditarod Unit Study Helps

Labels: ecology, endangered species, federal issue, polar bears, unit study

Free Activity

The Great Backyard Bird Count - Feb. 15-18, 2008

How to Participate

1. Plan to count birds for at least 15 minutes during February 15-18, 2008. Count birds at as many places and on as many days as you like -- just keep a separate list of counts for each day and/or location.
2. Count the greatest number of individuals of each species that you see together at any one time, and write it down. (You can get regional bird checklists here.)
3. Enter your results through our web page.

Be sure to print a participation certificate to give out to students or to anyone who takes part in the GBBC.

Labels: all ages, free activity, outside activity, Photo Contest

While shopping at our local market a few days ago, we came across an entire section of field guides put out by Lone Pine Publishing. My son started grabbing books off the rack and shoving them into our hands and the shopping cart.

He knows we rarely say no to buying him books but a quick look at the price made me gasp. Here we stood with 8 or 9 books in our hands and not one of them was under $20. Now, I’m all for expanding the mind and encouraging my son to read but I wasn’t prepared to spend over $200 on reference material that I knew for a fact wouldn’t get used more than a few times a year.

The books themselves were impressive. Several of the paperback books were made with textured covers, so they should wear and travel really well. My son really likes the pocket size Animal Tracks of Northern California Field Guide; it is very portable and provides images of what to look for and plenty of clues to assist you in tracking your favorite animal.

Below is a list of the books we purchased and their price on Amazon.

• Mammals of California by Tamara Eder ($15.61)
• Bugs of Northern California by John Acorn ($11.21)
• Birds of Northern California by David Fix ($14.93)
• Squirrels of the West by Tamara Hartson (9.31)
• Animal Tracks of Northern California (Animal Tracks Guides) by Ian Sheldon ($7.95)

While I wouldn't call these books cheap by any stretch, purchasing them from Amazon does provide a significant savings. Our local store had them really marked up high. You can purchase them directly from Lone Pine but their prices were higher than Amazon's, so we simply used their site as a guide, finding the books we were interested in, then searching for them on Amazon. We found only one book we wanted that wasn't available on Amazon.

To be perfectly honest, most of the information in these books can be found totally free on the Internet, the problem is printing out an entire field can get costly very quickly. By the time you factor in your ink costs, wear on your printer and don't forget the paper, buying field guides for subjects that really interest your child is a very good investment. The best part is they travel well.

If you purchase a couple at a time (spending at least $25.00, shipping is free and these books make terrific gifts for just about any occasion.

Just for good measure we also ordered a copy of California Hiking - The Complete Guide to More Than 1,000 Hikes, published by Foghorn Outdoors ($14.93), in the hopes that it will enspire us to actually get some use out of all those filed guides.

To make carting everything around, we've enlisted the help of several clear plastic bins. The bins come in assorted sizes and we prefer the clear ones because it makes it easy to find things at a glance. The back of our Subaru has several. We have a medium sized plastic toolbox that serves as a first-aid kit, with all the essentials, including a disposable camera.

We also have a large clear plastic bin that contains our camera equipment, field guides, tripod, maginifying glass, notepads and pencils. We add to the bin or remove things depending on where we are going. If we are going to the lake, we add towels and water socks. A trip to the mountains might require hiking boots. The bins are easy to remove when not needed and they keep things neat and organized.

Every trip you make can be an adventure. It's up to you.

Find Free Field Guides

• Field Guides - Search more than 5,500 species
• American Field Guide - A collection of over 1400 video clips that enable you to experience America's wilderness firsthand
• Wildflower Field Guide - by DesertUSA Magazine
• Field Guide for the Californias - by San Diego Natural History Museum Field Guide
• Field Guide to Freshwater Invertebrates - by Leska S. Fore
• Field Guide to Common Texas Insects - Entomology by Texas A&M University

Labels: field guides, first-aid kit, hiking, plastic bins