Module 2, The Dos

Essential Question:  How does digital information change our understanding of natural systems? 

When I moved up from Oregon I never expected to be so reliant on the weather.  Sure Oregon has rain and some sun but frankly the weather was never that important.  I would never look at the weather to plan my day, just grab a coat and go.  Flash forward 10 months, and here I am sitting at the computer every morning to look at the different reports from around the sound.  NOAA  for my weather to see if we can work outside or if my flight will even get off the ground. I look at the winds over Turnagain Arm if I will make it home from inservice when in Anchorage. Then when I am tired of the rain and want to prove to myself that it has not stopped raining for days I go to the National Water and Climate Center to check out the stats.  This seems a bit obsessive but hey there is not much to do in a small town. 

So what the heck does this have to do with the essential question?  Well just think about how much we are tracking with different equipment relating just to weather in such a small area.  Now expand that idea to Alaska and then to the rest of the world.  At no point in history have we monitored the earth so  So what the heck does this have to do with the essential question?  Well just think about how much we are tracking with different equipment relating just to weather in such a small area.  Now expand that idea to Alaska and then to the rest of the world.  At no point in history have we monitored the earth so closely in so many places.  And it is not just related to weather we have over 400 seismic monitoring stations in Alaska alone . 

Even more importantly for my community is the tsunami warning system.  Placed along the coast in strategic locations to give as much notice as possible.

My village was hard hit by the 1964 Good Friday earthquake and following tsunami.  Many of the elders living in our village were from Chenega a sister village that was destroyed and never repopulated.   I am reminded of this every day since my house is about 10ft off of the beach.  My family and the students know very well the path that they will need to take to safety.  Preparation maybe all well and good but our lives are still dependent on the computer systems in Anchorage.

In conclusion I am glad they are watching my back.

Restless Aleutian volcano could erupt, scientists say 

Why is Alaska an important indicator for climate change?

Just this weekend I saw this article.

In this 2005 photo provided by the U.S. Forest Service in Juneau, yellow cedar trees are shown in the West Chichagof–Yakobi Wilderness, north of Sitka, Alaska. Forest Service researchers say a warming climate is killing off yellow cedar.

Alaska has several things going for it that make it so important to our understanding of climate change.  First the wide range of climate zones allow us to see how warming shifts patterns north changing things as they go.  The changing migration of animals or the growth of different trees at higher latitudes for example.  We are able to study the albedo change due to decreased snow fall/melting earlier.  Great lesson for everyone here Reflections From Space.  The other related to this is the shrinking sea ice levels of the arctic.

Extend Question:  In Google Earth, try placing a yellow pin at each landscape you visit.  Try taking a screen shot and using it in a post.

For me I have been limited to the central part of Alaska.  I am hoping to travel north sometime soon with the army or vacation this summer.

 Reviews from around the class.

Gary's Alaska Blog

I like the straight forward format and clear way he laid out what needed to be done for class.  This along with his look at Alaska from above made a good blog.  I also thought his discussion was very interesting and shocking on how much waste occurred during the early cannery days.

Latitude 61

An excellent blog about the connection of humans and the natural environment.  I especially agreed with her point about the topography affecting the building of Alaska.  Having drive the Alcan on the way up to here this summer this was very evident.  The immense effort, the short amount of time and the loss of life was not wasted on us during our drive.

Crossing Alaska

I really liked the formatting of this blog. The well selected pictures that accented the information were a good mix of informative and interesting.  I especially like the picture of the board through the tire taken in Whittier.  That is our sister school in our district and we get to listen to them complain at inservice about the weather.  They have a tunnel between the tower where they all live and the school.  I guess they got tire of losing kids to the weather.

Evaluate/Discuss the class:

This weeks module had a lot to digest and it was easy to wander down a rabbit hole or two and forget to get back to the class for a while. I have always been a earth science kinda guy and so this was a lot of fun.  I think that the one thing that I can't get over is still the size of Alaska in comparison to everything else in the United States.  I used to think Oregon was big compared to the south or east coast but the size of Alaska hit me when the big storm was hitting Nome up to Point home this fall.  I got several calls from people asking if we were going to be all right (non Alaska residents).  I found this funny because I live 700 miles south.

On a random note I had real trouble putting pictures in this week without having the format go all crazy on me.  So a few less at the start.