This article features children's literature about oceans - specifically the Arctic and Southern Oceans.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores the plants that live in the polar regions as well as resources for teaching plant classification, life cycles, and adaptations.

This article features children's literature about plants and the plants found in the polar regions.

This article provides an overview of the geography, characteristics, and life of the Arctic and Southern Oceans.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In Antarctica, certain photosynthetic microorganisms produce enough food in the summer to sustain aquatic ecosystems through the long, dark winters. One species of photosynthetic Chlorobium bacteria dominates Ace Lake in East Antarctica, and its abundance changes drastically with the seasons. However, the importance and abundance fluctuations of this species in other Antarctic water bodies are unclear. To learn more, a recent metagenomics study examined Chlorobium sequences from Ace Lake that spanned seven years, plus sequences from two nearby marine basins. The species Candidatus (Ca.) Chlorobium antarcticum dominated all three aquatic systems, and its genome varied little. However, there was seasonal genomic variation in the ability to synthesize cobalamin, which is required for photosynthetic growth. Since most bacteria can’t synthesize their own cobalamin, Ca. Chlorobium antarcticum is likely a major source of cobalamin in these three ecosystems..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This article describes Katy Farness' work with the Byrd Polar Research Center at the Ohio State University. Farness used remote sensing images and computer technology to create detailed images of Antarctica and the ice sheets of Greenland.

Students learn about humankind’s search for life in outer space and how it connects to robotics and engineering. NASA is interested in sending exploratory missions to one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, which requires a lot of preparatory research and development on Earth before it can happen. One robot currently being engineered as a proof of concept for a possible trip to explore Europa is the Icefin, which is an innovative robot that can explore under ice and in water, which are the believed conditions on Europa. This lesson provides students with intriguing information about far off (distance and time!) space missions and field robotics, and also sets up two associated robotics and arts integration activities to follow. The lesson can be used individually to provide new information to students, or as a precursor to the associated activities. A PowerPoint® presentation and worksheet are provided.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores the basic characteristics of rocks and minerals, the types of rocks, the rock cycle, and the specimens found in the polar regions. Find lessons that allow students to observe rock and mineral specimens, perform classification exercises, and read to develop their content knowledge.

This article provides geography lessons to teach elementary students about the polar regions. Literacy extensions are included for each lesson.

This article describes how the 2007 film The Golden Compass portrays the polar regions.

In this issue of the free online magazine Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, learn about the tools and technologies scientists use to study the land, ice, ocean, atmosphere, and living creatures of the polar regions. Students can also learn about the day-to-day life of a scientist working at the South Pole and plan their own research expedition.

This article assembles free resources from the Science at the Poles issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine into a unit outline based on the 5E learning cycle framework. Outlines are provided for Grades K-2 and Grades 3-5.

This article features children's literature about scientists and scientific research in the Arctic and in Antarctica.

In this classroom activity, students create models of the spinning Earth and see how the planet's revolution around the Sun creates differing daily and seasonal patterns of dark and light. The printable five-page handout includes a series of inquiry-based questions to get students thinking about daily and seasonal light cycles, detailed experiment directions and a worksheet that helps students use the experiment results to gain a deeper understanding of why Antarctica doesn't have daily nights and days.

This article provides a list of children's literature relating to the geography and characteristics of the Arctic and Antarctica.

This article describes the work of Dr. Jason Box, a researcher studying summer melt ponds on Greenland's ice sheets and the response of glaciers to try to explain the changes in climate that are being observed in the polar regions.

A short stereoscopic 3D science story video introducing Antarctica's Weddell seals and two of the scientists who study the population ecology of this southernmost mammal on Earth. The stereo 3D is in side-by-side 3D format, and can be viewed using Virtual Reality goggles or a 3D display/TV. Features Weddell seal moms and pups, and on-location interviews with project lead scientist Dr. Jay Rotella and Jesse DeVoe, MS. Video produced by Mary Lynn Price. More info at WeddellSealScience.com.

This article describes early studies of the auroras, including techniques used from 1960 when Henry Brecher first spent the winter at Byrd Station in Antarctica.

This nonfiction article, written for elementary students, discusses the unique characteristics of the North and South poles. The student article is available as a text-only document, illustrated book, and electronic book. Related lesson plans are included for teacher use.

This article features children's literature about the tundra, food chains, and food webs.