Glaciers
We're Deborah and Brittani. We live in Juneau, Alaska, which is home to 38 glaciers flowing from the gigantic Juneau Ice Field. We love being outside, especially during our short Alaskan summers, so we decided to check out a glacier up close at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. The center has cool exhibits that explain the science behind glaciers-like the fact that a glacier is a river of ice that moves because of its own weight and that the Mendenhall Glacier receives about 100 feet of new snow each winter! We also saw some evidence, such as old photos, that the glacier has retreated in the last 30 years. That got us thinking about global warming, and we wonder: How fast are the glaciers melting?
Download Now (272 kb)We're Deborah and Brittani. We live in Juneau, Alaska, which is home to 38 glaciers flowing from the gigantic Juneau Ice Field. We love being outside, especially during our short Alaskan summers, so we decided to check out a glacier up close at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. The center has cool exhibits that explain the science behind glaciers-like the fact that a glacier is a river of ice that moves because of its own weight and that the Mendenhall Glacier receives about 100 feet of new snow each winter! We also saw some evidence, such as old photos, that the glacier has retreated in the last 30 years. That got us thinking about global warming, and we wonder: How fast are the glaciers melting?
How would you investigate this question?
Field studies of glaciers can't happen just anywhere. But there are fun things you can do at home or school to study how ice melts under different conditions. Think about how you might design such an investigation. Describe your investigation in your notebook and discuss it with your teacher, or go to Glaciers to learn more about what Deborah and Brittani discovered.
