Greenland's Petermann Glacier & Global Warming

On August 5th scientists discovered that a huge mass of ice four times the size of Manhattan had broken free of Petermann glacier in northwestern Greenland. The "ice island" was the largest calving event on the glacier since 1962, and researchers estimated Petermann lost nearly a quarter of its floating ice tongue in one go.

As it turns out, the new ice island was born just in time for the 35th anniversary of the scientific paper that coined the term "global warming." On August 8, 1975, the journal Science published the article entitled "Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?" by Wallace Smith Broecker of Columbia University.

Petermann glacier disintegration has been proceeding since year 2000, with a pause in 2009. The 2010 disintegration is 3 times larger than any previous ice area loss in Greenland, since at least year 2000.

Is it possible to link this event to climate change? While it is unreasonable to pin the cracking of a glacier on Global Warming, the retreat of Petermann glacier is certainly part of a pattern of global warming.

Warming is stronger in the polar regions because melting removes reflective snow and ice cover, allowing more sunlight to be absorbed by the underlying dark ocean or land, further increasing melt rates in an amplifying 'feedback loop'. That is why the Arctic region displays the most dramatic evidence of global warming and climate change.

ProQuest has created a collection of more than 30 Earth & Space Science CourseCart learning activities to help teachers and students go beyond textbook learning and integrate 21st Century inquiry-based learning. CourseCarts are collections of BookCart learning activities that address major topics and issues related to popular science courses and textbooks.

One of the CourseCart learning activities in the collection focuses on global warming: "Global Warming—Effects and Solutions." This learning activity and all the other CourseCarts in the collection can be copied to your local collection by first opening eLibrary Science Teacher Edition and then clicking the Earth & Space Science CourseCart link (XLS).

CourseCarts save time and provide teachers with the flexibility to make inquiry-based learning activities at a variety of points in a course when it's appropriate. Each Cart provides examples of essential questions that help students develop 21st Century critical thinking skills, student directions that guide the research process, an option for call numbers to related print resources, an optional quiz, a 21st Century literacy standard, and ProQuest models for written reports and presentations. You won't find this combination of inquiry-based learning activity support in one place in any other K-12 resource.

A complete listing of more than 100 ProQuest eLibrary Science Carts is available for you to copy this or any other Carts that support your science curriculum inquiry-based learning activities needs. Teachers will probably be interested in the Biology CourseCart learning activities as well.

Assign students a report of at least 200 words (or a presentation of at least two minutes and seven slides). Student should use the pathfinder provided below to save searching time.

The report should cite at least three resources and address the following essential questions for critical thinking (you can add or substitute others):

• What evidence is there that global warming and climate change exist?
• What evidence is there that emissions from fossil fuels contribute to global warming?
• What are the hazards of doing nothing to address this problem?
• Who is responsible for retarding action on global warming and why?
• What solutions would you propose to reduce global warming and why?

Type "Global Warming" in the Search box > Sort Results list by DATE.

Your students can use our custom ProQuest models for written and PowerPoint-style reports.

Teachers may be interested in a ProQuest flexible rubrics model for evaluating inquiry-based learning activities.

Teachers may also be interested using this free (registration required) tool for creating a variety of printed resources including quizzes.

Find out more about all of ProQuest's research tools...