SHEBA stands for Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean. This National Science Foundation funded project involves more then 50 scientists and includes major programs in Meteorology, Oceanography, Sea Ice Physics, and Biology. During the field portion of this project a ship was frozen into the arctic ice pack north of Alaska for a year (from Oct. 1997 to Oct. 1998) for use as a scientific base.
This paper describes an educational component that we have developed to go with the SHEBA project. This component includes interdisciplinary lesson plans aimed at middle school students. These lessons are based on the principles involved in the SHEBA project, on SHEBA data available through the world wide web, and on the data that the students obtain from performing hands on activities and scientific experiments that parallel the activities and experiments carried out at the SHEBA field site. The lesson plans are designed to meet learning goals set in the New Hampshire Curriculum Framework.
There are many reasons that SHEBA presented itself as a good project for development of an educational component. First, there has been a high level of public interest in this project. ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Christian Science Monitor have all presented feature stories on SHEBA. Second, information on SHEBA is easily obtainable through the world wide web. General information and pictures from the SHEBA field site, and much of the scientific data collected by the scientists are available, making this a great project to teach students how to use the web to gather information. Third, to quote Don Perovich, SHEBA chief scientist, "SHEBA is truly an interdisciplinary project". Lessons taken from SHEBA show the interconnectivity of different areas of science and also include the study of geography, the history of arctic exploration and research, and other non-science topics.
Scientists from SHEBA have already visited elementary and middle school classrooms in Hanover and Nashua, New Hampshire. These scientists were welcome by the students and teachers with great enthusiasm. The students plotted SHEBA’s course as it has drifted with the ice pack, kept track of the weather at SHEBA, and sent messages and questions to these scientists while they were at the SHEBA field site. The students’ messages and questions have shown a great interest in and understanding of the SHEBA science project.