Connections between Culture, Climate, and Oceans

The seasons and typical climate-patterns of the year dictate the livelihood of Alaskan Natives who follow a subsistence lifestyle. Each month, new plants and berries ripen and new animals are ready to harvest and put up for the rest of the year, when food, or at least that specific type of food, may be scarce.

Tlingit and Haida scientist Dolly Graza explains that Native Alaskans are, by virtue of their keen observation skills, scientists without the formal education. “They would have to know which things were good for them, which things would make them healthy, which things they had to stay away from, when to move. […] They couldn't survive otherwise. I still believe that they were probably the consummate scientists that researchers could only hope to be today.”

Global warming and the changing climate is negatively impacting Alaskan Native’s subsistence way of life for a variety of reasons. As was explained in Warmer Oceans Affect Food Web, the sharp decline in the harbor seal population since 1989 may be partially due to a three degree increase in sea surface temperature in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea that took place in the late 1970s.

Sand lance and other small fish, which are the base of the food chain for many marine mammals and seabirds, were not able to adapt to the increased temperatures of their habitat. Their population decline can be linked to the subsequent decline in populations of larger marine mammals, such as the harbor seals, and the disruption of entire Prince William Sound ecosystem.

More about sandlance at Whalewatch.com.

Tlingit and Haida scientist Dolly Graza – who went to school for a degree in Home Economics and ended up instead with a B.S. in fisheries science from the University of Alaska, a M.S. in fisheries from the University of Washington, and a Ph. D. in marine policy from the University of Delaware – explains that she went for her advanced degrees because she wanted to make sure that there was Native involvement in policy development pertaining to Native Alaskan natural and cultural resources.  

Garaza sets a great example for modern Alaskan Native students, showing them that Natives have always been incredible scientists, and that their continued involvement in modern science is crucial to the sustainable management of Alaska’s cultural resources.

Those who live a subsistence lifestyle in Kachemak Bay, where I live, depend heavily on the salmon population, which sharply declined after the Exxon Valdez oil spill on Good Friday, in 1989. We have still not seen the recovery we are hoping to one-day see. This year, the Anchor River and many other rivers on the Kenai Peninsula closed early due to an insufficient run of kings and red salmon.  This module got me thinking about the other factors that may be influencing our salmon run. It is unfortunate that we don’t have more pre-1989 baseline data to compare to.

Clean up efforts after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Septmeber 1989

Other important natural and cultural resources here in Kachemak Bay and on the Kenai Peninsula include halibut, octopus, clams, moose, grouse, and a variety of fungi and berries – such as blueberries, high and low bush cranberries, salmon berries, currants, and watermelon berries.

A king salmon from Deep Creek, spring, 2010.

Octopus from Anchor Point beach, fall 2010

 Salmon run at Humpy Creek, fall 2010

Collecting fungi in Kenai, fall 2010

To learn more about Alaskan Native perspective on climate change, I watched  A Subsistence Culture Impacted by Climate Change on Teacher Domain, which highlighted problems that the Athabascan culture’s subsistence way of life is facing due to climate change.

The video explained that the Athabascan communities, like many other Alaskan communities, is highly dependent on the salmon population, which is, unfortunately, being negatively affected by climate change.

Salmon eggs require cool water and clean gravel beds. Warming oceans are causing permafrost melting, and substances to leeching out that fish cannot adapt to. Eroding land increases sediment in salmon spawning grounds, which can smoother their eggs; the eggs can also be affected by higher water levels and flooding.  The warmer water has left salmon looking for colder, glacier-fed creeks, and the Athabascan people looking for the salmon that have previously always returned to the rivers and streams they fish on.

The damaged eco-system makes it hard for the Athabascan community to continue their subsistence way of life – and not only because of the decreased and misplaced salmon population. Warming climates have caused blueberry patches to dry up and have allowed invasive species from more temperate climates to come in and force out native species, such as ptarmigans and gofers, which are grizzly bear prey. The whole ecosystem is affected. The effects of climate change are being felt first in the Arctic, but they will soon be felt increasingly drastically around the world.

Western Explanations for Scientific Phenomena

            I very much appreciate the variety of resources available on Teacher Domain. There are many compelling videos and interactives offering Western explanations for scientific phenomena, and lots and lots of others can be found elsewhere on the web.

Climate Change

This week, I particularly liked Air vs. Water Heat Capacity because of the easy-to-understand diagram-illustrated explanation it gave for why climate change is happening on Earth. I also liked the demonstration of heat-capacity in air and water (it’s amazing that water can absorb 1,000 times as much heat as air!). The balloon demonstration is a good idea. It will really stick with kids of a variety of ages.

Seasons

            I also liked What Causes Earth's Seasons, which I had used last year when teaching about causes for seasonal climate change on earth. The 3D images of the Earth spinning around the sun and receiving light at different angles seemed to help the students get a good mental picture of how and why the seasonal climate change occurs in different areas of the world when it does. I like how in Seasons on Earth, the Northern and Southern Hemisphere temperature maps are shown side-by-side. This gives another good visual.

            The Global View of the Seasons animation of seasonal vegetation change on Teach Domain provides another good visual for students. I have seen a similar thing like this done on phytoplankton growth during various seasons in the Bering Sea.

Heat Capacity

I enjoyed doing the lab, Does a Watched Kettle Boil?. I think it will prove to be a good resource to assist older students (4^th grade – 8^th grade, maybe) in understanding what heat capacity is, how heat is absorbed, and the rate at which it is absorbed.

It may be useful to do the same lab with different amounts of water, and calculate how much thermal energy in calories it takes for various amounts of water to reach the boiling point (100 mL vs 1,000 mL, for example). The lab could also be modified to measure the amount of time it took for the various amounts of water to cool off.  This might help students to understand why temperature in the night and day on the ocean does not vary greatly.

Density and Convection Currents      

            I also liked the density lab idea of using blue ice cubes and red water. I have been doing a similar lab involving warm and cold colored water to illustrate convection currents during units on plate tectonics and currents, but I think the ice cubes might actually be more effective.

The Coriolis Effect, Currents, and Gyres

            I liked the diagram provided in the YouTube resource The Coriolis Effect. And the The Coriolis Effect in Bathrooms does a nice job of dispelling the misconception that small amounts of water, less than 20 k in radius according to the video, are affected by the Coliolis Effect.

            A quick hands-on activity I have found to be useful in teaching the Coriolis Effect to have one student spin a basketball or other sphere while another student attempts to draw a straight line from the top to the bottom. Students can immediately see how rotation forces the pen to the right at the top and to the left at the bottom, just like the Coriolis Effect forces water and air to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

Good explaination at The Ozone Hole.

            Last week in my science classes, we learned about how ocean currents and the Coriolis Effect create the five major ocean gyres. We also learned about how an incredible amount of trash is collecting in them – especially in the North Pacific Gyre – before going out for a beach clean-up on Friday.  The Five Gyres Project and the Ocean Conservancy has an incredible amount of information and ideas about how individuals and classrooms can help.

Five Gyres Project has a many great resources for teaching about the 5 gyres.

Highlighting and Explaining Native Ways of Knowing Scientific Phenomena

There are lots of great resources on the web for explaining scientific phenomena in Western terms. It can be difficult, however, to find interesting and accurate resources that have to do with Native Alaskan lifestyle and traditional ways of knowing.

I appreciate Teacher Domain because it has these hand-to-find resources. I am particularly interested in how climate change is affecting Alaskan Native ways of life. I was able to find several good resources on this topic that I will consider using in my final project, including A Subsistence Culture Impacted by Climate Change, which I have already mentioned,  Arctic Climate Perspectives, An Unpredictable Environment, Climate Change in Alaska, Arctic Climate System, A Changing Arctic Ecosystem, Changing Arctic Landscape., Global Warming Threatens Caribou, Tracking Polar Bears, and Polar Bears and Climate Change.