The International Polar Foundation has developed a website with many activities and teaching ideas for young children. It includes animations, images and games on a wide variety of polar topics including comparing the Arctic and Antarctic, scientists at work, ice coring, polar bears, seals, whales, birds, krill, penguins, climate, energy, seasons, and ice. Activity: Through a cute animation, young children explore a comparison on polar bears and penguins and why they will never meet. ...

What is more fun than learning about penguins? How about adopting one for your classroom! A teacher traveling to Antarctica with Dr. David Ainley, an adelie penguin scientist, will send your class pictures and updates on your adopted penguin’s health and activities, as she aides in his research. Even after the research expedition ends, this website will provide images and activities for teaching about penguins and Antarctic science. Activity: Students will be able to adopt a breeding pair of adelie penguins, and analyze the factors and variables that will make their pair successful parents. Pictures of each pair will be posted on the Internet for students to observe along with other data they can record and analyze. The interactive website will also provide general...

A real-time view of sunlight on the Earth. You can view a flat map, the Earth from the sun’s view, the moon’s view, and a night view. Understanding why the Arctic and Antarctic experience 24 hours of sunlight or darkness becomes clear with this visual representation. Activities: - An ideal way to use this website would be to acquire an old computer having the capability of displaying this website constantly in the classroom. Students can observe daily, monthly, seasonally how sunlight changes on the planet in relation to the Earth’s rotations, tilt and revolutions. - Have students measure across the map and then across the sunlight at their latitude. They can work with ratios of available sunlight and compare them to other places on the globe. Over...

This page by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center gives access to 14 pairs of glacier pictures showing the loss of ice over time. (You need to scroll down the page, click the box titled, “Long-Term Change Photograph Pairs;” then scroll to the bottom of the page and click “submit.”) Activities: Print out the glacier pair photographs. Put the dates on the backs. Have students match the photos by noting topographical features, shapes of landmarks, etc. Using the website, identify where the glaciers are located and mark them on a world map. Discuss what strategies they used to match them. Compare areas to historical records of climate and temperature of the areas during the period of time when the photos were taken. ...