Summary
This is an activity designed for a tabling or open house style event. Participants will learn and reenact how polar scientists discover what’s happening in polar environments by recording the health of the animals that live there.
Materials and Preparation
- Folder containing:
- Body condition chart
- Pictures of polar bears
- Pictures of seals
- Measuring tape
- Stuffed seal
- Stuffed polar bear
- Radio collar or “Bur on the fur”
- Replica seal flipper tag
- Relevant bio materials (ex: polar bear skull)
Set-Up Instructions:
- Lay out all print outs/images and biomaterials
- Arrange all supplies for the activity near or around the stuffed polar bear and seal
Learning Objectives
Objective #1
Measure characteristics of either the seal or polar bear
Objective #2
Make connections between body size and survival in polar environments
Objective #3
Understand how the health/body size of predators indicate the state of polar food webs
Opening Activity
- Introduce the activity by asking if they would like to be a polar scientist and discover how we learn about animals who live at the poles
- Invite participants to share what they know about animals living in the Arctic and Antarctic
- After discussing a few of these characteristics, ask participant to choose either a seal or polar bear to investigate further
Activity Overview
- Explain that scientists measure characteristics in order to learn more about the animal and see how healthy/well they are surviving
- Have participants measure each characteristic on either the stuffed seal or polar bear (body length, axillary girth, and weight)
- Body length and axillary girth will be measured with a tape measure and the weight be measured visually by comparing the stuffed animal to the body condition chart.
- Explain what each characteristic can tell scientists about the health/survival of that individual
- Have the participant place the replica seal tag or polar bear tracker on the stuffed animal.
- Explain how scientists will record unique characteristics or put a tag/tracker on the animal in order to find them again in the future.
- Explain that’s important for researchers to monitor animals to see if there are any changes to their bodies over time
Reflection
- Ask participants what they think that scientists learn about the arctic/antarctic by monitoring the body size of large animals
- Ask participants to imagine that scientists come back the next year and find the same polar bear/seal and discover that the same measurements are much lower than the year before. Ask what they can guess is going on in the environment to make the animal lose weight.
- Explain that polar animals are dependent on sea ice to hunt for food. As the earth warms, the sea ice melts, preventing animals from hunting and catching food.
Extension Questions:
Do you think scientists use similar methods to learn about other polar animals like penguins and whales? What might be similar or different?
Supporting Documents
References:
- “How Do Scientists Weigh Wild Polar Bears?”
- “Drones Are Helping Scientists Weigh Seals in Antarctica”
- Durner and Amstrup (1996) Mass and body dimension relationship of polar bears in Northern Alaska. Wildlife Society Bulletin
- Kolenosky, G. B., Lunn, N. J., Greenwood, C. J., & Abraham, K. F. (1989). Estimating the weight of polar bears from body measurements. The Journal of wildlife management, 188-190
- Malenfant, R. M., Davis, C. S., Richardson, E. S., Lunn, N. J., & Coltman, D. W. (2018). Heritability of body size in the polar bears of Western Hudson Bay. Molecular Ecology Resources, 18(4), 854-866
- Lidgard, D. C., Boness, D. J., Bowen, W. D., & McMillan, J. I. (2005). State-dependent male mating tactics in the grey seal: the importance of body size. Behavioral Ecology, 16(3), 541-549
Standards:
Science Practice 4
Analyzing and interpreting data
Science Practice 6
Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
Crosscutting Concept 2
Cause and effect: mechanism and explanation
Crosscutting Concept 6
Structure and function
LS 2
Ecosystems: interactions, energy, and dynamics
Polar Literacy Principles:
1D
Polar climates create different living conditions
4E
Marine and terrestrial predators are predictors (indicators) of change in food webs.
Made possible with funding by the U.S. National Science Foundation Award #2221990. The information contained here is those of the author(s) and does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
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