STEM PB #9 - Glaciers Are Alive

Non-fiction picture books can create a wonderful foundation for building hands-on STEM activities. Glaciers Are Alive by Debbie S. Miller is a perfect choice if you teach anything related to glaciers, cold-weather habitats, geological history, global warming, adaptations, or other glacier-related topics!

Featured Picture Book:
Glaciers Are Alive (2023)
​By Debbie S. Miller (@DebbieMillerAK)
Illustrated by Jon Van Zyle
(Interesting info - they both live in Alaska and Jon is the official artist of the Iditarod!)

Summary:
Glaciers are complex features on our planet that have a life cycle of their own. They support numerous living creatures, from those that are gigantic to microscopic species. This book traces the interactions these creatures have with various parts of glaciers, introducing vocabulary in a kid-friendly way full of onomatopoeia and imagery!

Related Themes and Standards:
SEL:
Respect for nature and animals

ELA:
Personification
Metaphors
Onomatopoeia
Imagery
Vocabulary

Science:
Glaciers
Animal Adaptations
Seasons
Habitats
Water cycle elements
Geology

STEM Ideas:
1. Have students recreate the effects of glacial movement on the surface geology by freezing ice cubes with sand and/or stones in the bottom. Here’s a great resource from Better Lesson with directions!

2. Have students recreate the extensive pressure involved in glaciers by carrying out this Teacher Vision lesson using marshmallows.

3. This blog post at Little Lives has neat ideas from sensory tubs for our little scientists, to creating Glacial Gak to simulate the slow movement of glaciers, to a neat activity using ice cubes and marbles to show how melting glaciers affect coastlines!

4. Have students choose one of the living creatures mentioned in the story to research and create a model of the glacial habitat.

5. Have students use information from the story to create a 3D model of a glacier using Tinkercad (print if you have time and access to a 3D printer)

6. Have students recreate parts of the story in Canva and create a 2-minute video to teach others about glaciers.

7. Drones are being used to place sensors on remote glacial surfaces to monitor climate change. Supplement the story with this article about drones and glaciers. Have students engineer model glaciers and sensors to attach to their drones. See if they can fly their drone and place the sensor at the top of their glacier.

Feel free to leave your ideas in the comments! #BetterTogether!