What if the Polar Ice Caps Melt

Everyone knows that sea levels will rise and coastal areas will be flooded, the exact amount is always debated.

But one phenomenon that I think is more destructive will be a disruption in the Great Ocean Conveyer Belt. This is the current that travels around the world's oceans circulating all the water. If the ice caps were to melt then this would cause the fresh water to remain above the salt water near the north pole. In order for the process of the belt to continue it needs to sink at the poles to allow the cycle to continue. The less dense fresher water would not sink and potentially stop this conveyance.

The result would be that the warm waters from the Gulf of Mexico would not bring those warm nutrient rich waters to Europe causing drastic temperature drops. This effects plankton, the basis of many food webs and deep water bacteria that regulate hydrogen-sulfide emissions. This toxic gas then would poison life on Earth and reduce further the already fragile ozone layer.

While scientists are not sure this will happen the possibility is frightening enough! Some scientists have concluded that a similar event was the cause for the Permian-Triassic Extinction event which killed off about 96% of all marine species and 70% of land species.

So I am not so worried about a little water rising up as much as I am worried about the possible long term potentially catastrophic events.

Reflection of STEM Lesson Plan

I personally did not enjoy creating a lesson plan through that format. Perhaps I am not all that knowledgeable how to use it effectively. For me there was a lot of different steps and many of them seemed repetitive. For example I felt that I must of talked about the preparatory set up two or three times. It was also a very rigid system that seemed to involve a lot of writing.

I use primarily Backwards by Design but I often have to be flexible as I switch schools every few years moving from country to country. This means having to adapt to different systems and different levels of planning. I find that those that are the most basic and most flexible are the easiest to adapt to.

The STEM system is very in depth and pulls from a variety of ideas like Bloom's Taxonomy and others. This ensures that the lesson will be of the highest educational value and that it employs the latest in educational research. This also means however, that it is a very lengthy and complicated process.

I feel that this is just one way to approach it and it may be effective but that it would take some time to get used to. I am sure with more practice it would become more easy to use for lesson planning.

In short I am glad I do not have to plan like this other than for this course!