First I must admit that I HATE having to evaluate/comment on another blog!! I feel we have ALL grown in our abilities, skills, and knowledge!! We all started in very different places in our knowledge and skill sets. I personally am quite proud of my personal growth in knowledge and skills! Many things were a first for me such as my first ever blog and presentation!

Having said all that and for the sake of a grade I will comment on the required 5 blogs!

I really enjoyed the spectacular, realistic photos and the clear and concise writing in Woven Ideas and Practices. How in the world did you get your photos so clear? You had lots of links and I really liked your color choice. Of course being an Art teacher that explains alot! You sound like a fascinating person, just like all the other people in our class. It has been a pleasure to read your blog!

Kobuk River Valley People ~ What was the content warning for? I felt nervous!! Your paper nine was my favorite because I learned alot about the village of Kivlina. I really enjoy reading about real places the most especially since I am actually in Alaska now!! The photos were amazing of the houses so close to that steep edge!!

BRENDASEXPLOREALASKA ~ I think the black background for the photos was awesome but it was too hard on my eyes to read the words. I have to admire your guption for having 3 kids especially a 4 year old with you!! I have seen photos of Sitka and it appears to be very beautiful!! I have a friend who comes out there for several weeks at a time. I really loved the old photo of the Eskimos building an igloo and the fur baby carrier on the snow. Great blog!

AlaskaZgal ~ I think the polka dots are really neat and different! What made you choose your blog name that was cool too! I really could relate about how we are all in this together and therefore we are all responsible for getting us out of this mess. I read with interest about your visit and subsequent observations on the current state of affairs in the lower 48! Beautiful blog! Liked the older photo of the Natives as well!

DavesExploreAlaska ~ I wanted to check out one of the guy's blogs and I was duely impressed! I think you must have come over to my blog and killed my bear! My gosh I have never seen a bear so big in my life!! I would love to know what you did with the whole thing? Did you make something from the skin? Is the head mounted on your wall? What size gun did it take to kill that?!?!? Oh yes, and it was way cool how you got the background to stay stationary and the reading part to scroll!! I enjoyed watching the videos as well! Super job!

Final Project

Essential Question:How can digital resources and effective teaching methods be used to integrate Alaska Native ways of knowing and Western scientific methods in order to create greater understanding of, and interest in, geosciences for students?

I am in an unusal situation this year since I am not currently a classroom teacher. I am the Deaf Education Coordinator for my school district. As part of my job I serve 34 Deaf/Hard of Hearing students from PreK to High School in 16 different schools. I provide direct services as well as consultative services.

Soo....I decided to create a comic strip presentation to showcase Teachers' Domain to my peers at all 16 schools that I travel to. I also emailed a copy of my presentation to my fellow teachers in North Carolina! Everyone was excited to get on Teachers' Domain and start incorporating it into their personal situations.

My goals and objectives are to enlighten my peers as to the wonderful digital resource we have in Teachers' Domain and how it can be used along with effective teaching methods to address a variety of subjects (including geosciences) to integrate Alaska Native ways of knowing and Western scientific methods in the classroom setting.

Attached you will see my first ever attempt at a presentation!! Enjoy!!

Module IX -The Cryosphere: Terrestrial Ice

Essential Question: How are climate, terrestrial ice and Alaskan indigenous cultures all connected?

GLACIAL HUMOR

Q: What's the difference between an iceberg and a clothes brush?

A: One crushes boats and the other brushes coats!

Q: What kind of coffee were they serving when the Titanic hit an iceberg?
A: Sanka!

Q: What's another name for ice?
A: Skid stuff!

Q: Why is the slippery ice like music?
A: If you don't C sharp - you'll B flat!

Q: What's a sign that you have an irrational fear of icebergs?
A: You start having water-tight compartments installed in your pants.

Q: What do you get from sitting on the ice too long?
A: Polaroids!

Q: If you live in an igloo, what's the worst thing about global warming?
A: No privacy!

OK, since this is my last blog for this class I couldn't resist searching out a little humor! These were among the best at this particular website. While we are still on a roll, if you want to view a glacier melt this particular one was too funny. Pay attention to the people and how they have to keep moving further and further from the shore! I don't have time to get the copyright permission so you are free to check out these awesome glacial cartoons on your own. Enjoy!! They sure made my day!! Please vote on your favorite glacier cartoon at the bottom of my blog!! This last piece just proves that you can find ANYTHING on the Internet if you look long enough! I found this piece relevant, albeit just plain weird!

I must admit Alaskans sure know what to do with terresterial ice whether its the stunning ice carvings at the World Ice Art Championships (notice the fish and ice log cabin with yours truly), Human Bowling in Chatnika (that one child doesn't look to happy!), cross country skiing down the Chena River (end of March) or simply sliding down the mile long ice slide. Terresterial ice sure can be fun when done Alaskan style!!





Breaking Up is Hard to Do...and It's Messy Too!

I am currently suffering the effects of spring break up here in Fairbanks!! I must admit this is the worst part of the year so far! All the breathtakingly beautiful white snow that was part of the albedo effect has now changed to ugly black 'glaciers in miniature' around town. And the locals lament that this spring is nothing due to the unseasonably warm winter we just had and the utter lack of accumulated snowfall compared to years past. Fairbanks International Airport recorded only 24.8 inches of snow this winter which makes it one of the lowest snow years in the past 100. Yes, just for the record I went yesterday and purchased several tickets for the 94th annual Nenana Ice Classic spurred on heavily I must admit from family members back home. I had until midnight of April 5th to accomplish this task. If I get lucky, you will be the first to know! As of March 25th the ice was 51 1/4 inches thick. Including this year, the ice thickness has exceeded 50 inches in only six of the past 22 years according to measurements since 1989. Seems Cherrie Forness's (Ice Classic manager) quote came right from our class! "I don't think thickness is a huge issue..... its more snowfall. There's nothing insulating it so its just getting thicker and thicker. If we don't have any snow, you don't have any melt off so the ice will just sit there and rot away. If we have snow, we have melt off that will cause the river to come up and push the ice out." Sounds like a simplified explanation for a positive feedback loop doesn't it?

As previous modules this one has particular relevance to my current situation and once again drives home the point of the interconnectedness of everything here on earth - the atmosphere (air), lithosphere (land), hydrosphere (water, along with ice and snow referred to as the cryosphere), and biosphere (life) and how one minute shift in any of these parts will have a lasting and monumentally devastating effect on both the land and its people.

"Too often, living off the land is romanticized. But no matter how skilled a hunter or fisherman might be, subsistence living is a gamble. The slightest whim of nature such as failure of a salmon run, an early freeze that kills a generation of migratory birds, or crippling snows that decimate the moose population can mean starvation." Two Old Women By Velma Willis

Like the quote suggests I arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska on July 25th with a very much romanticized vision of the land and its people. Ironically, just like the module explained I arrived during the peak of the Alaskan wildfires and the recent Mount Redoubt explosion. I suffered firsthand the effects of the ash falling from the sky and the curtailing of travel due to the forest fires. In fact the air quality was so poor I sent my 10 year old son back to North Carolina-however it took us three days just for him to leave since the flights were grounded due to poor visibility!!

This experience prompted me to take

my first workshop here titled 'Fire in Alaska' that introduced me to the joys of dendrology

and local field trips to see permafrost melt and the direct effect it had on local housing. We were able to create models in the lab and actually set them

on fire to demonstrate just how quickly huge areas could be devastated by fire and permafrost damage.

This experience in turn led me to sign up for this current online class where I have slowly and sadly replaced my romanticized version with the stark reality of life in Alaska. Just like this class I feel I have come full circle and now with the aid of the information from this class I must make the next biggest decision of my career as to where I will choose to work and live next year. Thanks for all those who took the time to vote!

In conjunction with this class I was also watching a series on PBS called 'Extreme Alaska' which dovetailed perfectly with subjects in this class. Last night's episode was about remote villages that were shrinking and loosing coastline due to global warming! Hey, Clay did you help with that program too?

I also was fortunate to have been adopted by a local Native family that showed me the heartbreak and joys of subsistence living with the added benefit of tasty treats along the way! It was a real honor to study something in this class and then have the ability and privilege to discuss it with them. Their firsthand knowledge and experience coupled with the facts of this class was truly 'shining two lights on the same path'. I am looking forward to visiting their village in the near future!!

This class has spurred me to environmental action while here in Alaska and given me a greater appreciation for the struggles of both the land and her people. One of my new found passions is to help preserve the oral traditions of the Natives.

One driving factor to come to Alaska, like many people from the lower 48, was to come witness firsthand the beauty of Alaska's glaciers. Who would have imagined there were so many glaciers with such fascinating names!! This would be an excellent reference for classrooms of any age! Once again I always romanticized the calving glaciers without realizing the global impact on climate that this melting truly represented. It is doubtful that I could witness this activity again without experiencing extreme sadness for its global implications.

While I will always admire the subsistence lifestyle of Native Alaskans it is heartbreaking to think their way of life may truly end in my lifetime if we don't take seriously the effect of greenhouse gases and global warming. It really scares me to think of all these isolated villages possibly being decimated if the warming happens quicker than we expect and they are caught off guard with no real means of escape! This quote from Teacher's Domain sums it up beautifully;

"Perhaps more significant, however, would be the severing of longstanding ties to land that has sustained the Alaska Native peoples for generations. Language, stories, spirituality, culture, and ways of life of Alaska Native peoples derive from having lived in one area for hundreds of generations."

MODULE VIII



ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How are Arctic sea-ice, climate and culture all connected?

"So he learned that it caused less pain to think about certain things than to speak out about them..." Two Old Women by Velma Wallis



It breaks my heart to think that my son, much less my future grandchildren, might never see the Artic wildlife that I have grown to love and appreciate due to the tragic consequences of global warming! I can't 'bear' the thought of future generations not having the ability to see polar bears or Beluga whales!! Due to the fragility and lack of species diversity in the Artic it is the first place where global warming is having a dramatic and instant effect on both the animals and cultures of the region. This module once again drives home the point of the extreme interconnectedness of the land and its people!
This module was extremely relevant to me because I have to make a monumental decision about where I will choose to work next year. Right now I have narrowed it down to Homer or Barrow. But this module just drives home the fragility of life in Alaska no matter where you go! I was horrified to watch the video about the damaging effects in Shishmaref. Totally unfamiliar with subsistence living it never would have occurred to me that while the natives waited for the ice to freeze for hunting that the animals were moving away from the villages forcing the people to travel further and further from their homes to get food scarce as it was at the time.

Considering the damage caused by storm erosion I think Robert Iyatunguk (Erosion Coordinator) summed it up most succinctly when he laments that "it kinda scares you inside your body. We're like in a panic mode. If our runway gets flooded out there goes our evacuation by plane.We can't predict these storms...we just take it day by day here." As an elementary school teacher of deaf children it horrifies me to envision innocent children being trapped in one of these villages with no escape route possible. I realize that this happens in other parts of the world but it just seems so much more dramatic here in Alaska due to the extreme weather conditions!
This module, as previous ones, was chock full of interesting factoids about the cryosphere. Some of the more interesting ones included: A given water particle in glaciers, ice sheets or ground ice, however, may remain frozen for 10-100,000 years or longer, and deep ice in parts of East Antarctica may have an age approaching 1 million years.The Arctic ecosystem lacks the diversity of most other major ecosystems. So, if the population of one predator or prey animal declines, the entire food web may be affected and the loss rate of sea ice—now up to 10 percent per decade—is such that summer ice could completely disappear by 2040, if not sooner! Now that is a sobering thought!

"Sa' marveled at the power that the land held over people like herself, over the animals and even over trees.They all depended on the land, and if its rules were not obeyed, quick and unjudgemental death could fall upon the careless and unworthy" Two Old Women by Velma Wallis

This is a small detour from the topic of climatic change or is it really? This quote from my recent read forced me to ponder the fate of the Special Ed. teacher who was killed by a pack of wolves recently. Could the change in climate have impacted their food source which in turn drove them closer to the village in search of food? Or was this just some random act of nature that happens when people and animals inhabit the same space?

I read with interest the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change and while I wholeheartedly support the basic premise however, some "calls for action" grabbed my attention more than others. I don't understand why the natives would consider "clean coal" as having a negative impact as they assert in 6. We challenge States to abandon false solutions to climate change that negatively impact Indigenous Peoples’ rights, lands, air, oceans, forests, territories and waters. These include nuclear energy, large-scale dams, geo-engineering techniques, “clean coal”, agro-fuels, plantations, and market based mechanisms such as carbon trading, the Clean Development Mechanism, and forest offsets. The human rights of Indigenous Peoples to protect our forests and forest livelihoods must be recognized, respected and ensured. We express our solidarity as Indigenous Peoples living in areas that are the most vulnerable to the impacts and root causes of climate change. We reaffirm the unbreakable and sacred connection between land, air, water, oceans, forests, sea ice, plants, animals and our human communities as the material and spiritual basis for our existence.

This one in particular caught my attention! 8.We call on financial institutions to provide risk insurance for Indigenous Peoples to allow them to recover from extreme weather events. Are they expecting the government just to give them insurance? I thought anyone could purchase insurance to cover certain natural disasters? New Orleans immediately comes to mind and how they were devastated, and lost everything which forced many to relocate. Would Natives ever relocate by choice to any other part of Alaska?
In summation, whether its the shut down or modification of the thermohaline circulation, change of the albedo sea ice or release of methane and CO2 gases from permafrost and the methane hydrate layer as proposed by Eddie Carmack,oceanographer for Fisheries and Oceans,Canada our world as we know it is currently and inevitably heading for a climatic change of epic proportions. Let's just hope we humans and animals can survive the challenge!

Photos:
1) Stuffed Polar Bear inside Alyeska Ski Resort
2) Model Beluga Whale near Girwood, AK
3,4,) Glaciers outside of Girwood, AK

"Elisapee Ishulutaq, a 78 year old artist with a spry and radiant smile, was born in an outpost camp when most natives here were nomadic. They were dog sledding as late as July, she remembers, more than two months later than snow and ice breaks up now. "All the mountains were covered with glaciers." she said. "There isn't any deep snow anymore." Elisapee pointed to her younger self in black and white photos on her living room wall. She said there were stories in her childhood about a warmer future. "It was foretold by the elders that sometime the north would warm up and south would cool down."
http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/arctic.html

MODULE VII
Essential Question: How is Earth's climate connected to its geological, biological and cultural systems?

Of all the modules so far in this course I found this particular one to be the most fascinating and relevant, albeit the most controversial, topic living in Alaska. The topic dovetailed perfectly with my previous blog about the proposed ban on PM emissions from wood and coal burning here in Fairbanks. Like the blog before, the topic of greenhouse gases brings out both the believers and the skeptics enforce! The topic could not be more timely since now the government is acknowledging they might have been slightly off on the Greenhouse Effect. Depending on who you talk to and their personal experience the topic engenders various responses from utter denial to confirmed believers.

I would definitely fall into the firm believers category. Quite frankly I never gave it a second thought living my sheltered life in North Carolina where heat and humidity are a constant especially in the summer time. So what if the earth's atmosphere heats up a few "more" degrees!

It wasn't until I moved to Fairbanks, Alaska and met a native family that I have experienced in a very personal way the effects of Greenhouse Gas as well as the interconnectedness of the planet to the natives. I must share their story here because it puts a very human face to the problem. They were living in a native village,Nulato, when their daughter became very ill. Because of her illness they had to move into Fairbanks so she could receive treatment at the local hospital. Their doctors are convinced that part of her illness was brought on by contaminants she ingested through their subsistence lifestyle. They maintain their home both here in Fairbanks as well as Nulato and travel back and forth between the two cultures as much as their daughter's medical issues will allow. They have shared photos from their village where the moose they once depended on are having deformities caused by contaminants. They shared the same stories where their subsistence lifestyle is having to be modified or abandoned altogether due to climatic changes and water temp. variants. They have given up some of their cultural ways in fear of the unknown contaminants getting into their food sources. The mother described how the animals and fish are getting thinner over the years and not as many are getting to their village to sustain the people there.

I recently returned from a visit to Anchorage where we visited the Alaska Native Heritage Center and toured the different styles of homes from the different types of tribes across Alaska. It suddenly occurred to me how if the tundra continues to subside how it will affect something as basic as shelter, and clothing. This in turn will have a cylindrical effect on the people and where they can live based on their ability to get the food that sustains their way of life. It saddens me deeply to think that the native way of life that I have come to respect so greatly may very well be on the brink of extinction or at least changed dramatically due to climatic changes in part that are within our grasp to control.

"There used to be different layers of snow back then. The wind would not blow as hard, not make the snow as hard as it is now… It's really hard to make shelters with that kind of snow because it’s usually way too hard right down to the ground." T. Qaqimat, Baker Lake, Canada, 2001
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/arctic-climate-change/toolboxes/indigenous-knowledge-trends-2.htm

I read with extreme interest the story of the geophysicist,Klaus Lackner, and the carbon catcher synthetic tree. As an educator it drives home the point that our society as well as native society will depend largely on our ability to produce high caliber scientists to continue such vital investigations. The native environmental biologist, is the epitome of how the two cultures must work together to solve the problems created now but affecting generations to come. La'ona DeWilde was yet another fascinating example of the marriage of modern scientific technology (GIS database) and native observations to influence future decisions. The native youth helping scientists is the 'light at the end of the tunnel' that shows the vital role youth must play in protecting their future.

Some tidbits that really surprised me were that the CO2 emitted from your car today can reach Antarctica by next year and that CO2 unlike water vapor can remain in the air as long as 100 years! It was awe inspiring to know that John Nagy,wildlife biologist, from the Climate Change Project recognized the women from Sachs Harbor gave better qualitative data since they had the immediate hands-on experience with the animals that they were responsible for butchering. Norm Snow's observation that the natives had year round access to seasonal and climatic changes unlike the scientists was also informative.

This module has inspired me to action in two ways! I will share the teacher domain website with my 10 year old son,Harley. He is a budding scientist who is enthralled with supernovas and all things related to space. Before that it was mummies but hey I have to ignite that scientific spark and keep in burning for future generations! Since I am living here in Alaska this module inspired me to pay a visit to UAF to meet the local scientists and see if volunteering for a project could be in my near future since summer is fast approaching and my teaching job will end.

If we don't want the "Big Bang Theory" to become the 'Big Bust Theory' we must be ever vigilant in protecting our way of life for EVERYONE before we too follow the way of the dinosaurs. Rosemarief Kuptana, a native Inuvialuit said it best; " when climate affects what you eat it affects your soul as a people".

The listing of polar bears as threatened under the U.S. endangered species act will name global warming as the main threat, a first. The reduction of the permanent Arctic sea ice by 14 percent since the 1970s is causing not only feeding and breeding difficulties, but also drownings and apparent cannibalism among bears.
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/arctic-climate-change/toolboxes/indigenous-knowledge-trends-2.htm

Here are my choices for the awards! Some I slightly altered to suit my musings. I admit done rather hurriedly since I am trying to get out of town before we are stuck in Homer another night. It has been a real treat and a very humbling experience seeing other people's blogs!

MOST INTERESTING: ARTIC UPDATES

FUNNIEST WRITING: BEN'S EXPLORE ALASKA BLOG
BEST DESIGN: BILL ALASKA GEOSCIENCE

BEST LINKS: ALASKA CULGTURE AND GEOSCIENCE CLASS

BEST OF SHOW! WOOVEN IDEAS AND PRACTICES (OF COURSE FROM AN ART TEACHER!)

HONORABLE MENTION: DAN'S ALASKA CONNECTIONS
ONES THAT LOOK BETTER THAN MINE!: ALL OF THEM!!

MOST BIZZARE PHOTO: EXPLORE ALASKA (BEAR WITH BLUE TONGUE)

"Sa' looked up at the blue sky. To an experienced eye, the blue this time of winter meant cold." ~ TWO OLD WOMEN by:Velma Wallis

MODULE VI
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How are the earth, atmosphere and cultures all connected?
Want to make Alaskans really mad to the point of bearing arms? Just threaten their way of life and wait for a swift reaction!!
It would seem as if this week's topic was ripped right off the front page of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner! The borough mayor,Luke Hopkins, had proposed a pollution control plan that at the last minute he sent to a citizens commission for review. Seems the federal government is mandating a reduction in PM 2.5 levels (an air pollutant known to cause health problems). Fairbanks currently exceeds the federal guidelines for fine particulate matter. Violators would face fines up to $500. However, the program provides federal subsidies for those who swap dirty stoves for cleaner ones. Another sore point was a no-burn list including plywood,construction debris,particleboard,garbage and tires inside the borough's non-attainment area which encompasses 83,000 people. The plan would also
limit the sorts of solid-fuel burning devices that can be installed with existing devices being grandfathered in. According to the mayor, "We are trying to prohibit actions that will cause our air quality to be worse. We have to quit putting in poor-quality stoves and outdoor hydronic heaters, and we have to burn seasoned wood properly."



This drew overwhelming critical public testimony since wood smoke is the largest single contributor of PM 2.5. At a five-and-a-half-hour meeting on Tuesday, March 9th (ending around midnight) the group gave "general support" to the chimney smoke ordinance but not without a laundry list of recommended changes. The original Feb. 25th assembly meeting to introduce the plan was met with even more rudeness,catcalls, and hostility from people who showed up proudly and publicly bearing sidearms! Many supporters were intimidated by such a display. As Paul Costello (writer of a recent letter to the editor) lamented; "What kind of message does that behavior send to those folks whose kids are affected by the polluted air that surrounds their home or school and who care about clean air? Do you seriously think they will testify in the future knowing that the opposition is going to show up armed?

According to Dermot Cole (a resident of Fairbanks) "there have been 100 air pollution complaints with forty-two about outdoor wood boilers and 51 about smoke health issues, coal dust and open burning. He continues by stating ;"there's got to be a way of dealing with the pollution problem without screaming 'wood smoke' in a crowded room. Despite exaggerated claims to the contrary this is not about banning wood stoves, preventing people from heating their homes or penalizing people who burn firewood responsibly. It is about reducing the pollution level ..and responding to instances where people are infringing on the rights of their neighbors by blanketing them with smoke!"


This entire debate strikes too close for comfort since I will start serving students at WoodRiver Elementary School following spring break. The school has outdoor boilers nearby which prompted teachers to comment;"the classroom air is extremely bad due to the smell of woodsmoke...students were covering their noses with their shirts at their desks because the smell was so strong. These stoves do not belong right across the street from an elementary school." I struggle with upper respiratory issues that I hope won't be aggravated by the mere act of going to work! I think the saddest comment of all came from a 33 year resident of North Pole who so eloquently stated "the winter smoke is so bad that I am looking at the real possibility that I will have to sell my house and give up my residency."





(Photos 1 & 2: Air pollution on Ft. Wainwright, Photo 3: Newspaper photo of protesters outside of borough meeting, Photos 4 & 5: Interesting skies in Homer, AK)


http://newsminer.com/pages/full_story/push?blog-entry-Guns+don-t+belong+at+public+meetings%20&id=6664115&instance=blogs_editors_desk%29y/6652977/article-Pollution-commission-gives-its-support-to-borough-s-chimney-smoke-ordinance?instance=local_news

http://newsminer.com/pages/full_story/push?blog-entry-Guns+don-t+belong+at+public+meetings%20&id=6664115&instance=blogs_editors_desk)