Chris Wondra . com

The picture above is of my family (minus me, I’m taking the picture . . .duh) and Will Steger. It was taken at this year’s St. Paul Winter Carnival in January. The temperature that day was about 5 degrees and the wind was really kicking out of the north, so the wind chill was actually somewhere around -20.

Notice Nora’s (the youngest) facial expression. Priceless.

Anyway, Steger was using the event to kick off his latest adventure–a 1200-mile, four-month-long dogsled expedition across the Canadian Arctic’s Baffin Island. The expedition will be traveling with four Inuit dog teams over traditional hunting paths, up frozen rivers, through steep-sided fjords, over glaciers and ice caps, and across the sea ice to reach some of the most remote Inuit villages of the world.

Each day, the team will use innovative technologies to post video, images, sounds and text to the www.globalwarming101.com website, and communicate with online participants around the world.

It really is pretty cool. Check out this audio dispatch from the trip, uploaded March 3rd. In it he explains some of what they did that day, different techniques they are using with the dogs and sleds for the terrain they are crossing (going downhill for example), and a bit about the temperatures they are experiencing. It really is pretty interesting.

Once you register (it really is quick, free and painless) you will also have access to, among other things (I lifted this list and explanation of the following right from the site after I registered):

• Grade 6-12 Interdisciplinary Lesson Plans

• Grade K-5 Activity Packets

• Grade 6-12 Activity Packets

• Discussion Starters

• Education Resources

• Educational Events

• National Standards

The Education program includes:

Six interdisciplinary lesson plans on global warming for middle and high school students, edited and approved by National Geographic Xpeditons and Union of Concerned Scientists. These lesson plans will help students master the requisite background information on global climate change processes, the importance of the Arctic to global climate, the potential effects of a warming Arctic, and consider what can/should be done in response. They will also provide a framework for further information collected and sent back from the expedition.

A catalog of cross-disciplinary classroom activities for K-12th grade. The catalog offers over 60 activities available for download, free of cost. All activities are related to global warming, experiential in nature, and written by partners at Jefferson Community School in Minneapolis, MN, and by participants in the Will Steger Foundation Institute for Climate Change Education.

The activities are broken into K-5 activities and 6-12 activities.

GlobalWarming101 Forum: A secure and moderated on-line forum. Learners and educators will communicate through the forum about global warming-related news, projects and class activities. The forum will be continually updated with breaking news stories and satellite messages from the expeditions.

Discussion Starters (can be used on or off the forum): A series of discussion starters give educators the tools they need to help students develop critical thinking skills and learn how to engage in respectful and informed discussion and debate about issues related to global warming.

School of Environmental Studies Student e-Zine: Students at SES will produce their own monthly on-line Global Warming focused magazine including current events, field work and class projects, art, music and film, and responses to the expedition. The Ezine will be featured on the Global Warming 101 website.

Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA): Currently the most important document about global warming in the Arctic, the ACIA can be used as an important learning tool in middle school and high school classrooms.

Ethanol 101: A series of lesson plan for grade-school students developed by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) designed to promote ethanol awareness.

Students and teachers can integrate the educational curriculum components developed by the team into their coursework, and can participate in the expedition through research and forum discussion. During the week-long visits to each Inuit village, Steger’s team will meet, listen to, and document the Inuit’s experience with climate change. These collected images, sounds and stories will illustrate the climate-related changes happening in the Arctic.

As a team of 8th grade core (language, science, math and social studies) teachers, we are currently working together to come up with a way to examine this issue in each of our classes this spring. I think it will be great because we have such a mix of liberal and conservative teachers at this level that the students here will actually have a pretty good shot at getting a look at global climate change from a number of diverse and even opposing viewpoints.

It will be a great opportunity for students to exercise what they’ve been learning about finding credible sources, thinking critically about evidence, and coming up with their own conclusions. I think this issue, because it’s so current and because of the opposing viewpoints (to say nothing of the political debate) makes for perfect co-curricular, interdisciplinary research and inquiry.

Steger’s information will of course only be a portion of the information we, as a team of teachers, will be using.

Update: You can also find an overview of another great “live” resource here. It’s called “Turning the Ship.”

This from that site:

In February and March of 2007, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and The Clark Group are convening thought leaders from a variety of disciplines to explore the on-going environmental transformation of the U.S. Economy.

Here is an ongoing collection of continually updated articles on that project’s blog. It’s broken into categories like:

• Sustainable Infrastructure

• Sustainable Manufacturing

• Sustainable Finance

• Sustainable Purchasing, and

• The Green Wave

It’s really fascinating and current. Especially starting March 13, when a roundtable discussion begins bringing together “leaders from a variety of fields to explore market and policy barriers that may be inhibiting adoption of environmentally sustainable practices by U.S. businesses.”

Hopefully information from that meeting will also be posted on the web.

I’ve had this post on the back burner for about a month but have been putting it off for two reasons:

1. Steger’s trip is sponsored by (among a few other companies including National Geographic and Gander Mtn.) Shaklee. Shaklee has actually partnered with Steger on quite a few past expeditions. They have a strong history of cooperation. Lisa and I are Shaklee distributors (notice her hat in the above picture). I hesitated because I wanted this to be more about educational opportunities and less about those two Shaklee links above. I mention it in the spirit of full disclosure and transparency. I think if you visit Steger’s Global Warming 101 site, there can really be no doubt about its integrity.
2. I haven’t had the time to write up a post that does this topic, and this teaching opportunity, justice. I still don’t think I did. But sometimes I figure you just have to let ‘er rip.
3. And along those lines, and in the spirit of the “Turning the Ship” project–if anyone has, or knows of any other additional resources (on both sides of the issue) for teachers, please share them for all to see in the comments section below.  If we get enough, I’d be happy to compile them all into one neat and easy to read post (unlike this one).

Now, I’m sorry, but I can’t end this post without adding couple additional quick pics. I just think my girls are so darned cute. You’ve got to remember how cold it was that day (and no–the irony of Steger kicking off an expedition to study global warming on such a cold day is not lost on me):

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