Climate News

MARCH 6TH TEACHER WORKSHOPS IN COLORADO SPRINGS

Meeting Materials

For those who attended the Science Hubs meeting, you can download meeting materials here.

1.  All presenter powerpoint files (zip file)
2.  Selected handouts

Some people noticed that the Evidence lesson plan has the old Colorado science standards on it -- this was due to a version error, and we are updating it.  You can access the Evidence lesson plan here:  http://learnmoreaboutclimate.colorado.edu/model-lessons/evidence-of-climate-change

Dr. Chris Ray mentioned the newly launched site on pika science that is not in the handouts.  That URL is:
http://cumuseum.colorado.edu/ScienceLIVE

Dr. Anne Gold included some resources in her first presentation that weren't on the handouts.  Those are:
1.  AAAS Strand Maps with concept maps of important topics in science and their interconnections, including climate:  http://strandmaps.nsdl.org
2.  AAAS Misconceptions study, outlining common misconceptions in various areas, including weather and climate:  http://assessment.aaas.org/topics
3.  Skeptical Science, a good source for sound information and explaining misinformation about various areas, including climate change:  http://skepticalscience.com
4.  Real Climate, another good resource for information about climate: http://realclimate.org

On the agenda:
* Is climate changing in Colorado?  How would we know?
* Climate and energy topics in the classroom
* The American Pika:  A model species for studying climate sensitivity
* Resources for teaching about climate and energy.
 

February 13, 2012

Equipped with specialized lasers and GPS technology, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are working with institutions including the University of Colorado Boulder to solve a critical wintertime weather mystery: how to accurately measure the amount of snow on the ground.

Transportation crews, water managers, and others who make vital safety decisions need precise measurements of how snow depth varies across wide areas. But traditional measuring devices such as snow gauges or yardsticks often are inadequate for capturing snow totals that can vary even within a single field or neighborhood.

Now scientists are finding that prototype devices that use light pulses, satellite signals, and other technologies offer the potential to almost instantly measure large areas of snow. In time, such devices might even provide a global picture of snow depth.

“We’ve been measuring rain accurately for centuries, but snow is much harder because of the way it’s affected by wind and sun and other factors,” says NCAR scientist Ethan Gutmann. “It looks like new technology will finally give us the ability to say exactly how much snow is on the ground.”

NCAR is conducting the research with several collaborating organizations, including CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The work is supported by NCAR’s sponsor, the National Science Foundation.

Emergency managers rely on snowfall measurements when mobilizing snow plows or deciding whether to shut down highways and airports during major storms. They also use snow totals when determining whether a region qualifies for disaster assistance. In mountainous areas, officials need accurate reports of snowpack depth to assess the threat of avalanches or floods, and to anticipate the amount of water available from spring and summer runoff.

More accurate measurements can also help meteorologists and hydrologists better understand snow physics and hydrological processes.

But traditional approaches to measuring snow can greatly underreport or overreport snow totals, especially in severe conditions. Snow gauges may miss almost a third of the snow in a windy storm, even when they are protected by specialized fencing designed to cut down on the wind’s impacts. Snow probes or yardsticks can reveal snow depth within limited areas. But such tools require numerous in-person measurements at different locations, a method that may not keep up with totals during heavy snowfalls.

Weather experts also sometimes monitor the amount of snow that collects on flat, white pieces of wood known as snow boards, but this is a time-intensive approach that requires people to check the boards and clear them off every few hours. The nation’s two largest volunteer efforts—The National Weather Service’s Cooperative Observer Program and the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network—each involve thousands of participants nationwide using snow boards, but their reports are usually filed just once a day.

More recently, ultrasonic devices have been deployed in some of the world’s most wintry regions. Much like radar, these devices measure the length of time needed for a pulse of ultrasonic energy to bounce off the surface of the snow and return to the transmitter. However, the signal can be affected by shifting atmospheric conditions, including temperature, humidity, and winds.

The specialized laser instruments under development at NCAR can correct for such problems. Once set up at a location, they can automatically measure snow depth across large areas. Unlike ultrasonic instruments, lasers rely on light pulses that are not affected by atmospheric conditions.

New tests by Gutmann indicate that a laser instrument installed high above treeline in the Rocky Mountains west of Boulder can measure 10 feet or more of snow with an accuracy as fine as half an inch or better. The instrument, in a little over an hour,  measures snow at more than 1,000 points across an area almost the size of a football field to produce a three-dimensional image of the snowpack and its variations in depth.

Gutmann’s next step, if he can secure the needed funding, will be to build and test a laser instrument that can measure snow over several square miles. Measuring such a large area would require a new instrument capable of taking over 12,000 measurements per second.

“If we’re successful, all of a sudden these types of instruments will reveal a continually updated picture of snow across an entire basin,” he says.

One limitation for the lasers, however, is the light pulses cannot penetrate through objects such as trees and buildings. This could require development of networks of low-cost laser installations that would each record snow depths within a confined area. Alternatively, future satellites equipped with such lasers might be capable of mapping the entire world from above.

Gutmann and Kristine Larson, a colleague at CU-Boulder, are also exploring how to use GPS sensors for snowfall measurements. GPS sensors record both satellite signals that reach them directly and signals that bounce off the ground. When there is snow on the ground, the GPS signal bounces off the snow with a different frequency than when it is bare soil, enabling scientists to determine how high the surface of the snow is above the ground.

Such units could be a cost-efficient way of measuring snow totals because meteorologists could tap into the existing global network of ground-based GPS receivers. However, researchers are seeking to fully understand how both the density of the snow and the roughness of its surface alter GPS signals.

“Our hope is to develop a set of high-tech tools that will enable officials to continually monitor snow depth, even during an intense storm,” Larson says. “While we still have our work cut out for us, the technology is very promising.”

“I think this technology has great potential to benefit emergency managers and other decision makers, as well as forecasters, “ Gutmann says.

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Scientific contacts:

Ethan Gutmann, NCAR Scientist
303-497-8283
gutmann@ucar.edu

Kristine Larson, CU Scientist
303-492-6583
kristinem.larson@gmail.com

From http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2012/02/08/cu-boulder-study-shows-global-glaciers-ice-caps-shedding-billions-tons-mass

February 8, 2012

Earth’s glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The research effort is the first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world’s melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise and indicates they are adding roughly 0.4 millimeters annually, said CU-Boulder physics Professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. The measurements are important because the melting of the world’s glaciers and ice caps, along with Greenland and Antarctica, pose the greatest threat to sea level increases in the future, Wahr said.

The researchers used satellite measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, a joint effort of NASA and Germany, to calculate that the world’s glaciers and ice caps had lost about 148 billion tons, or about 39 cubic miles of ice annually from 2003 to 2010.  The total does not count the mass from individual glacier and ice caps on the fringes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets -- roughly an additional 80 billion tons.

“This is the first time anyone has looked at all of the mass loss from all of Earth’s glaciers and ice caps with GRACE,” said Wahr.  “The Earth is losing an incredible amount of ice to the oceans annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet’s cold regions are responding to global change.”

A paper on the subject is being published in the Feb. 9 online edition of the journal Nature.  The first author, Thomas Jacob, did his research at CU-Boulder and is now at the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières, in Orléans, France.  Other paper co-authors include Professor Tad Pfeffer of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Sean Swenson, a former CU-Boulder physics doctoral student who is now a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

“The strength of GRACE is that it sees everything in the system,” said Wahr. “Even though we don’t have the resolution to look at individual glaciers, GRACE has proven to be an exceptional tool.”  Traditional estimates of Earth’s ice caps and glaciers have been made using ground-based measurements from relatively few glaciers to infer what all of the unmonitored glaciers around the world were doing, he said. Only a few hundred of the roughly 200,000 glaciers worldwide have been monitored for a decade or more.

Launched in 2002, two GRACE satellites whip around Earth in tandem 16 times a day at an altitude of about 300 miles, sensing subtle variations in Earth’s mass and gravitational pull. Separated by roughly 135 miles, the satellites measure changes in Earth’s gravity field caused by regional changes in the planet’s mass, including ice sheets, oceans and water stored in the soil and in underground aquifers.

A positive change in gravity during a satellite approach over Greenland, for example, tugs the lead GRACE satellite away from the trailing satellite, speeding it up and increasing the distance between the two. As the satellites straddle Greenland, the front satellite slows down and the trailing satellite speeds up. A sensitive ranging system allows researchers to measure the distance of the two satellites down to as small as 1 micron -- about 1/100 the width of a human hair -- and to calculate ice and water amounts from particular regions of interest around the globe using their gravity fields.

For the global glaciers and ice cap measurements, the study authors created separate “mascons,” large, ice-covered regions of Earth of various ovate-type shapes. Jacob and Wahr blanketed 20 regions of Earth with 175 mascons and calculated the estimated mass balance for each mascon.

The CU-led team also used GRACE data to calculate that the ice loss from both Greenland and Antarctica, including their peripheral ice caps and glaciers, was roughly 385 billion tons of ice annually. The total mass ice loss from Greenland, Antarctica and all Earth’s glaciers and ice caps from 2003 to 2010 was about 1,000 cubic miles, about eight times the water volume of Lake Erie, said Wahr.

“The total amount of ice lost to Earth’s oceans from 2003 to 2010 would cover the entire United States in about 1 and one-half feet of water,” said Wahr, also a fellow at the CU-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

The vast majority of climate scientists agree that human activities like pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is warming the planet, an effect that is most pronounced in the polar regions.

One unexpected study result from GRACE was that the estimated ice loss from high Asia mountains -- including ranges like the Himalaya, the Pamir and the Tien Shan -- was only about 4 billion tons of ice annually.  Some previous ground-based estimates of ice loss in the high Asia mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons annually, Wahr said.

“The GRACE results in this region really were a surprise,” said Wahr.  “One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and were extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers.  But unlike the lower glaciers, many of the high glaciers would still be too cold to lose mass even in the presence of atmospheric warming.”

“What is still not clear is how these rates of melt may increase and how rapidly glaciers may shrink in the coming decades,” said Pfeffer, also a professor in CU-Boulder’s civil, environmental and architectural engineering department. “That makes it hard to project into the future.”

According to the GRACE data, total sea level rise from all land-based ice on Earth including Greenland and Antarctica was roughly 1.5 millimeters per year annually or about 12 millimeters, or one-half inch, from 2003 to 2010, said Wahr. The sea rise amount does not include the expansion of water due to warming, which is the second key sea-rise component and is roughly equal to melt totals, he said.

“One big question is how sea level rise is going to change in this century,” said Pfeffer. “If we could understand the physics more completely and perfect numerical models to simulate all of the processes controlling sea level -- especially glacier and ice sheet changes -- we would have a much better means to make predictions. But we are not quite there yet.”
 
Contact:

John Wahr, 303-492-8349

John.Wahr@colorado.edu

Tad Pfeffer, 303-492-3480

Tad.Pfeffer@colorado.edu
 

From http://www.colorado.edu/news/features/did-little-ice-age-start-big-bang

February 1, 2012

Scientists have disagreed for many years over the precise cause for a period of cooling global temperatures that began after the Middle Ages and lasted into the late 19th century, commonly known as the Little Ice Age.

Now, a new study led by CU-Boulder Professor and Institute for Alpine and Arctic Research (INSTAAR) Fellow Gifford Miller indicates that the Little Ice Age began abruptly between A.D. 1275 and 1300, triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism and sustained by a self-perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean.

“This is the first time anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of the cold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age,” said Miller.  “We also have provided an understandable climate feedback system that explains how this cold period could be sustained for a long period of time.  If the climate system is hit again and again by cold conditions over a relatively short period—in this case, from volcanic eruptions—there appears to be a cumulative cooling effect.”  

Most scientists believed the Little Ice Age was caused either by decreased summer solar radiation, erupting volcanoes that cooled the planet by ejecting shiny aerosol particles that reflected sunlight back into space, or a combination of both, said Miller.

The new study, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Icelandic Science Foundation, suggests that the onset of the Little Ice Age was caused by an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions. Climate models used in the new study showed that the persistence of cold summers following the eruptions is best explained by a sea ice-ocean feedback system originating in the North Atlantic Ocean.

"Our simulations showed that the volcanic eruptions may have had a profound cooling effect,” says NCAR scientist Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author of the study. “The eruptions could have triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries."

The researchers set the solar radiation at a constant level in the climate models, and Miller said the Little Ice Age likely would have occurred without decreased summer solar radiation at the time. “Estimates of the sun’s variability over time are getting smaller, it’s now thought by some scientists to have varied little more in the last millennia than during a standard 11-year solar cycle,” he said.

One of the primary questions pertaining to the Little Ice Age is how unusual the warming of Earth is today, he said.  A previous study led by Miller in 2008 on Baffin Island indicated temperatures today are the warmest in at least 2,000 years.
 

January 25, 2012

A national research team led by the University of Colorado Boulder is embarking on a two-year, multi-pronged effort to better understand the impacts of environmental factors associated with the continuing decline of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.

The team will use tools ranging from unmanned aircraft and satellites to ocean buoys in order to understand the characteristics and changes in Arctic sea ice, which was at 1.67 million square miles during September 2011, more than 1 million square miles below the 1979-2000 monthly average sea ice extent for September -- an area larger than Texas and California combined. Critical ocean regions north of the Alaskan coast, like the Beaufort Sea and the Canada Basin, have experienced record warming and decreased sea ice extent unprecedented in human memory, said CU-Boulder Research Professor James Maslanik, who is leading the research effort.

The team will be targeting the Beaufort Sea, considered a “marginal ice zone” where old and thick multiyear sea ice has failed to survive during the summer melt season in recent years, said Maslanik of CU-Boulder’s Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research in CU’s engineering college. Such marginal ice zones are characterized by extensive ice loss and a strong “ice-albedo” feedback.

“Sea ice is lost when the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight in the form of heat in the summers, resulting in potentially thinner sea ice that re-forms the following winter,” Maslanik said.  “This positive feedback between heat absorption by the ocean and accelerated melting becomes reinforcing in itself.” Marginal ice zones also are characterized by significant human and marine mammal activity, he said.
 

There was a record loss of sea ice cover over the Arctic in 2007, he said. “In some areas of the Arctic Ocean the multiyear ice rebounded, but in the Beaufort Sea we did not see that kind of multiyear ice persistence like we used to see,” said Maslanik, who also is a research professor in the aerospace engineering sciences department.
 

“The biggest question is whether places like the Beaufort Sea and adjacent Canada Basin have passed a ‘tipping point’ and now are essentially sub-Arctic zones where ice disappears each summer,” he said.  Such ice loss could be causing fundamental changes in ocean conditions, including earlier annual blooms of phytoplankton, which are microscopic plant-like organisms that drive the marine food web.
 

The vast majority of climate scientists believe shrinking Arctic sea ice in recent decades is due to rising temperatures primarily caused by human activities that pump huge amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The new $3 million study led by Maslanik, “The Marginal Ice Zone Observations and Processes EXperiment,” or MIZOPEX, is being funded by NASA.
 

The team will undertake extensive airborne surface mapping using a variety of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or UAS, comparing the results with data collected by a fleet of satellites from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Japanese space agency.  Unlike satellites, small, unmanned aircraft can fly below the clouds, observe the same location continuously for hours and make more precise measurements of sea ice composition and sea surface temperatures.  Maslanik and his CU-Boulder team previously used unmanned aircraft to assess ice conditions both in the Arctic and in Antarctica.
 

The MIZOPEX arsenal also will include floating buoys that measure ocean temperatures. CU-Boulder engineering faculty members Scott Palo and Dale Lawrence and their graduate students are converting miniaturized versions of dropsondes -- standard weather reconnaissance devices designed to be dropped from aircraft and capture data as they fall toward Earth -- into the buoys that will be deployed by the UAS.
 

The modified dropsondes, which were developed at CU-Boulder for use in Antarctica, will be combined with CU-designed miniature unmanned aircraft that will land on the ocean near sea ice floes. Such floes are critical to several species of Arctic wildlife, including polar bears, walruses and seals.
 

The buoys and unmanned craft will collect sea surface and subsurface temperatures to about a meter deep, while the overflying unmanned planes and satellites measure temperatures at the surface, Maslanik said. “We want to know if the warming is just at the ocean surface or if there is additional heat getting into the mixed layers of the upper ocean, either from absorbed sunlight or from ocean currents, that could be contributing to sea ice melt.”
 

The team plans to gather information over 24-hour cycles to determine how the ocean and ice are reacting to atmospheric changes. “Understanding what’s happening in the water is critical to forecasting what will happen to ice in the near term, as well as in the decades to come,” said MIZOPEX team scientist Betsy Weatherhead of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
 

“We’ve never had the data before,” Weatherhead said. “With this new instrumentation, we’ll be able to ask questions and test theories about the drivers of ice melt.”
 

The MIZOPEX effort involves CU-Boulder, NASA, Fort Hays State University in Kansas, Brigham Young University, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, NOAA, the University of Washington and Columbia University.  Ball Aerospace Systems Group of Boulder also is collaborating on the project.
 

Other MIZOPEX project scientists from CU include Brian Argrow, Sandra Castro, Ian Crocker, William Emery, Eric Frew and Mark Tschudi.  Argrow directs the CU-headquartered Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles, a university-government-industry partnership for the development and application of unmanned vehicle systems.
 

For more information on MIZOPEX visit http://ccar.colorado.edu/mizopex/index.html. For more information on CU-Boulder’s Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles visit http://recuv.colorado.edu/.
 
Contact:

James Maslanik, 303-492-8974 James.Maslanik@colorado.edu

Betsy Weatherhead, 303-497-6653  Betsy.Weatherhead@noaa.gov
 

Science Explorers 2011-12: Earth System Science – Exploring Change in the Critical Zone

For more information, visit the Science Explorer's page here.

Science Explorers workshops engage teams composed of 1 teacher and 5 students (grades 5-8) in a full day of hands-on, inquiry-based science. This year's workshop, Earth System Science: Exploring Change in the Critical Zone, focuses on the complex relationships between geology, soils, climate, ice, snow, wildfires and Colorado's water supply.

During this intensive hands-on workshop, teachers and students will rotate through three interconnected workshops:

Foundations for Flow:

Students and teachers will re-create a Colorado watershed from the bedrock up, and then wear it down with constructive and destructive forces over time. They will see our geological past, experience the sedimentary rocks on the surface, and then simulate the massive uplifts and faulting that formed our mountains. Using snow, ice, summer rains and heat, they will create snowfields, glaciers, streams and rivers, to grind the mountains down to the landforms that we see today.

Fire and Water:

Using computer mapping and hands-on experiments, students and teachers will explore the relationships between ecosystems, wildfires, soils and water. They will predict fire intensity and see how wildfires impact soils, erosion and water quality. They will conduct experiments to help understand how different soils impact water flow and storage, as well as how scientists use computer models to predict the way landscapes and watersheds will change over time.

Ice, Snow and H2O:

This chilly session focuses on how weather, climate, snow and ice impact Colorado's water supply. Teachers and students will create and conduct experiments with glacial ice, and use measurements and math to understand the relationship between glaciers, snowpack and our water supply. They will compare and contrast weather data and real snow tubes to solve a mystery, and play a fun game to understand how Earth System Interactions supply year-round water to Colorado, with only the occasional flood or landslide.

Click here to register for a Science Explorers workshop

For more details about the workshops, including how they address Colorado Science Standards, please contact Hester Nadel at 303-492-8640 or nadel@colorado.edu.

CU at the Library presents "Climate Change: Where We Are Now and Where We Are Going"

Professor James White
Geological sciences and environmental studies
Louisville Public Library, 951 Spruce Street

January 25    7 PM

Professor James White will review the basic science behind the Earth’s climate system, discuss how humans are impacting it, and put the current climate situation into the context of natural variability. White’s research primarily focuses on how and why climate changes have occurred in the past and how carbon dioxide moves between the atmosphere, ocean, and land plants

Programs are free and open to the public.
For more information, email outreach@colorado.edu or call 303-335-4849.

Cold Facts: Snow and Ice Family Days at the CU Museum of Natural History
Saturdays, January 7, 14, and 21
1:00-4:00pm

Join us at the museum as we ring in the New Year with a flurry of family activities. This January, we will be investigating the science of snow, from falling flakes to dangerous avalanches. Explore how climate change is affecting snow through hands-on activities. On January 28 we will explore climate change with a concert of environmental songs and skits created and performed by 'Jeff and Paige'. Expect original science-based music for kids, quick costume changes, plenty of audience participation and more. Ski, sled, or skate on in!

For more information: http://cumuseum.colorado.edu or museumed@colorado.edu or 303-492-1666.

View the full article from the Daily Camera here.

Maxwell Boykoff's interest in how the media covers the science of climate change began as a side project nearly a decade ago.

The University of Colorado professor -- who was studying vulnerability and hurricane activity in Central America at the time -- was musing about the interaction between science and public policy when he started to wonder how the media's coverage of climate change has impacted the public's perception.

The question sent Boykoff into the archives of some of the country's most venerable publications -- the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal -- where he discovered that many journalists' attempts to be "balanced" actually skewed their reporting on climate change.

The normal act of reporting on both sides of the story may not actually create an accurate story in the case of climate science, Boykoff concluded, since the scientific consensus is that climate change is happening and that humans are contributing to it.

Giving climate change skeptics equal space in a story may unfairly amplify their views, Boykoff found.

More than a dozen studies on climate change and the media later, Boykoff has published a book, released last week, called "Who Speaks for the Climate?: Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change."

"What started as a bit of a side project, I realized was something that needed a lot more attention," said Boykoff, a researcher at CU's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. "I ended up making that the focus of my ongoing research."

Boykoff's book takes an in-depth look into the media's coverage, which Boykoff says has improved in some ways.

"There have been lessons learned over time," he said. "But there have been lessons learned that we run the risk of having to learn again."

In particular, Boykoff is bothered by the media's tendency to conflate issues that aren't directly related into "one great global warming debate."

For example, a story about the ability of a cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions may end up becoming a story about whether humans contribute to climate change at all. Boykoff hopes his book will enable people to think critically about that kind of media coverage on climate change.

"For the everyday person picking up the book, it helps them really understand the processes of science, the processes of journalism and how these issues make their way onto the printed page and into a television news program," he said. "It helps them more critically engage with these kinds of issues."

Alan Townsend, director of CU's Environmental Studies Program, said that the topics tackled in Boykoff's book are an important "piece of the puzzle" to understanding how the public thinks about and responds to climate change.

"Public perception of any particular issue or event is clearly shaped by the conduit that they have for that information, which is the media," he said. "The way people are going to make decisions, the ways in which they're going to understand an issue, the way they're going to act can clearly be shaped by that."

Contact Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider at 303-473-1327 or sniderl@dailycamera.com.

Looking for something to do on an upcoming BVSD day off? On Nov 11, Science Discovery is offering a free program to interested 5th-8th grade students! "Earth System Explorers" is a 3-hour workshop sponsored by the NSF-funded Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory (CZO).

We will be piloting a new series of engaging hands-on activities focused on water, snow, geology, climate, glaciers and fire in the Boulder Creek Watershed. Hands-on science activities will include: creating glaciers and using them to wear down mountains; building the Flatirons from the bedrock up; creating streams, rivers and valleys; exploring fire ecology, erosion and stream chemistry; discovering the secrets in snow-tubes; and more. This will be an action-packed morning of experiments, computer mapping, interactive games, hands-on science and fun!

When: Friday, November 11th, 2011, 9:00 AM -12:00 PM

Where: CU Science Discovery @ Science Learning Laboratory, 3400 Marine St (EAST CAMPUS), Boulder, CO.

This opportunity is limited to 10 students on a first-come, first-served basis.  To register, please visit:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHA0ZFd1MlNheTNNTTUwLVBtM1pRUkE6MQ

For more information, please contact Anjali Maus at 303-735-2230 or anjali.maus@colorado.edu.