Antarctic Ice Inquiry

On Friday, January 30th, we learned about the three stages of matter: solids, liquids, and gas. We used the water cycle as examples of the three stages. Water is a liquid, ice is a solid, and steam is a gas. Antarctica is covered by ice that is a mile to two miles thick! Some of the ice sheets stick out over the ocean where the end of the ice sheet is actually floating on the ocean's surface forming an ice shelf. The Ross ice shelf is about the size of Texas and the biggest ice shelf in Antarctica. In 2000, a piece of the ice shelf broke off that was almost as big as Connecticut. We were wondering if the ice would melt faster in the ocean or on land? We also were curious how melting icebergs affect the ocean.

We conducted an experiment to try to answer our questions. We had one container with water in it and one that had frozen solid ice. The students felt the temperature of the water and it felt luke-warm. Then they added five ice cubes to each container. We noticed that the water level rose when we added the ice cubes. Then we waited for the ice cubes to melt.

We discovered that the ice melted faster in the container with water than the container that had ice. We also noticed that the water level was higher when the ice cubes had melted. The students felt the water again and the water felt colder.

We learned that if the Antarctic ice were to melt it would ruin the habitat for many animals as well as raise the ocean level flooding many islands and land near the sea. The ocean temperature could get colder, potentially harming ocean life in temperate regions.