Student Worksheet

Activity 1: Modelling the effects of ice melting experiment

Aim: To observe the effects of melting ice on the Earth's oceans.

What you need:

A large plastic tub or fish tank
A smaller tub (such as an ice-cream container)
A ruler
Some ice
Some warm water

Instructions - Part A: Modelling an ice shelf.

Step 1.

Pour some warm water (about 5cm deep) into your large tub. This represents the ocean.

Step 2.

Add some ice to the water. Make sure all the ice is floating (not in a big pile that sits on the bottom of the ocean). This ice represents the ice shelf. There are ice shelves at the north pole and the south pole. An ice shelf is made up of a thick layer of ice that floats on the surface of the ocean. This is the ice that breaks off to form icebergs.

Step 3.

Measure with the ruler the depth of the water (make sure that you are measuring to the surface of the water, not the top of the ice blocks.

Step 4.

Results: Come back and check the depth of the water every five minutes until the ice is completely melted. Record your results in Table 1. What do you observe after each time lapse indicated?

Table 1:

Step 5:

Create a graph of the water level in the space below:

Instructions - Part B: Modelling an ice cap.

Step 1.

Once again, pour some warm water into your large tub to represent the ocean.

Step 2.

Place your brick into the ocean. This represents the land mass (for example, the island of Greenland).

Step 3.

Neatly pile up some ice on top of the brick. This ice represents the ice-cap.

Step 4.

Once again, measure with the ruler the depth of the water. Record this on your worksheet.

Step 5.

Come back and check the depth of the water every five minutes until the ice is completely melted. Record your observations in Table 2 and plot a graph on your worksheet.

Table 2:

Create a graph of the water level in the space below:

Discussion questions

1. Did the water level change when the ice shelf melted?

2. What about the ice cap?

3. If you noticed any differences, can you explain them?

4. Can you think of any negative environmental effects of ice shelves melting? Describe them below.

5. Which melted faster? Can you explain why this might be the case?

6. How could you improve this experiment? Give at least three ways it could be improved or extended.

Activity 2: What if the entire Greenland Ice Cap melted?

Scientists today can do very sophisticated modelling and calculations to determine the effects of sea level rises on the population of the earth. You can get an idea yourself by doing bit of research and some calculations using your understanding of geometry.

There are three possible causes of sea level rise:

Melting of ice caps and glaciers
Thermal expansion of the oceans
Loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets

In this activity you will focus on the effect of the melting of the Greenland ice cap: what would happen if the entire Greenland ice cap melted?

To work out the effect amount of sea level rise you will need to do a number of calculations. These calculations are listed below, however they are not listed in the order you will perform them. Begin by putting these calculations into a sensible order in the flow chart below.

Calculate amount of sea level rise if the ice cap was melted
Calculate the volume of the Greenland ice cap
Calculate the surface area of the water in the world
Calculate the area of the Greenland ice cap
Calculate the surface area of the world

You will find the following information useful:

Radius of the earth 6378.1km
Percentage of the earth that is covered in water 70%
The average depth of the greenland ice cap. (2.8 kms)

Performing Calculations

Step 1:

The area of the ice cap

The map below represents the island of Greenland. The outer line (black) is the coastline. The inner line (blue) represents the ice cap. The grid on the map has spacings of approximately 500 km.

Step 2:

The volume of the ice cap

Answer the questions below:

The formula for the volume of a two dimensional shape is
The ice cap ranges in depth from about 1km to about 6km. The average depth is about
2.3km. Using this information, what is the volume of the ice cap?

Step 3:

The surface area of the earth

Answer the questions below:

The shape of the earth is approximately a
The equation for the surface area of this shape is
Use the radius of the earth and the equation able to calculate the surface area of the earth.

Step 4:

What area of the earth is covered with water?

Answer the question below:

Given that approximately 70% of the earth is covered with ocean, what is the area of ocean in kilometres squared?

Sample of calculations

Simon has two cubic metres of concrete. If he has to spread this over an area of four square metres, how deep will the cement be?
Aylia has three cubic centimetres of vegemite. She has two pieces of toast of area 100 square centimetres each. How thick will the vegemite be if she spreads it evenly across all the toast?
If the ice in the Greenland ice shelf was spread over the surface of the earth, how deep would it be?

Conclusions

Official estimates put the possible sea rise at around 6 to 7 metres. Was your estimate close to this?
Suggest ways you could get better information or perform different calculations to get a better estimate than the one you got.
Discuss how you could estimate the effect that this rise is sea level would have on the population of the earth. Make reference to what other information you would need to know to make this calculation.

Assessment

You will now apply what you have learned from the experiment in a structured communication project. Each group will be allocated one of the following specific questions to address. You should combine your findings (including data) from the experiment with research about your assigned specific topic.

What causes the sea level to rise and what are some of the affects of this rise?
Research and calculate the volume of ice in the Greenland ice cap and determine the amount the sea level would rise if the ice cap was to melt. Does this match the findings from your experiment?
What is the difference between an ice cap and an ice shelf and which melts fastest?
What evidence is there that the Greenland ice cap is melting and who will be the most affected by the melting?
Over what time scales are changes occurring to the Greenland ice cap? Given your finding from the experiment, is this rate of melting going to continue?
Would you be directly affected by a change in sea level rises and or will you be indirectly affected? Explain.
Research countries that are below this sea level and explain how they may be affected by sea level rises. Then calculate how many people would be directly affected.

Present your work according to one of the suggestions below (check with your teacher before selecting):

Multimedia presentation
Magazine article
Written report
Podcast
Short play
Wordle

Additional resources

Introductory:
https://climate.nasa.gov/kids/bigQuestions/planetHealthReport/

Advanced:
https://www.climate.org/topics/sea-level/index.html

Melting of the Greenland Ice Cap

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