July 17- Melting Iceberg Experiment

I too thought it was a little strange that we were supposed to comment on question 9 of the experiment so much before the due date.  So I just decided to do the experiment, answer question 9, then finish the rest of the questions later when I read what others have blogged about.  Above is a picture of my experiment.  I used a small Rubbermaid container and you can see on the lip of the container a little water ran over.  My hypothesis was that “If I add an iceberg to the container of water, then the iceberg will melt and the water will run over the already full container”. 

    I teach 7th grade science in Arizona.  I teach many units where I could incorporate this inquiry activity.  I show clips of the movie Inconvenient Truth as well to the students for the images of real icebergs.  If the polar ice caps melt I believe we will lose out on a beautiful, special, and unique part of our world.  The images you see are just spectacular!  I believe that both human and animal lives will be lost, habitats will be destroyed, and the water levels will rise.  Due to the fact that the majority of our freshwater is stored in the frozen glaciers, we will decrease our supplies when the water mixes with our salty seas.  I believe places like the coasts will experience decreasing coastlines as the water level rises.  

    I do not really have a question but I do believe that this would be a great way to start out a lesson on glaciers and global warming.  I think I will have the kids do the water activity; make hypotheses, observations, and conclusions.  We will do our lessons, research, discuss, and learn more together as a class.  Due to the fact there is so much controversy and debate about the topic of global warming, I would have each student write a position statement paper (to increase the frequency of written language in science class) and split the kids up into the two sides and have them debate.