What's Causing Sea Level Rise? Land Ice vs. Sea Ice

• In this experiment, students construct models to determine if land or sea ice contributes more to sea level rise.
• Students monitor melting ice cubes and rising water levels in their models. Then, they record data and evaluate their predictions.

Positives

• There is a student project page to walk students through the experiment with a helpful video tutorial.
• This experiment requires minimal materials.

Additional Prerequisites

• The teacher will need to freeze ice cubes ahead of time and use a tray that ensures they are uniform.
• Students should understand climate change and how it contributes to melting ice and sea level rise.
• It may benefit students to discuss how sea level rise impacts coastal communities.
• Spanish subtitles are available for the video tutorial.
• Students should know how to use a ruler and keep track of time in minutes.

Differentiation

• Teachers can discuss other implications caused by fast-melting ice, such as flooding, drought, and positive feedback loops.
• To make writing connections, have students write down their hypotheses and support them with evidence and reasoning.
• Teachers can make math connections by having students graph their data from the student worksheet.

This resource is from the CLEAN collection. “The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness.”

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.