Lesson video

Hello everyone.

Welcome back to another lesson with me Miss Sidenius.

Today, we're going to be learning about a big issue called global warming and how it affects polar habitats.

First, we're going to recap some of our learning about polar habitats from this unit.

Then we're going to learn about global warming and the effect that this has on the polar habitat.

Finally, we're going to carry out an ice experiment to see the effects of global warming in real life.

In this lesson, you're just going to need two things, a plastic container or a glass bowl and some ice.

You're not going to need them yet, so just hold off and I'll let you know when we're going to get them.

Star works, star works, star works.

My turn, global warming, global warming.

Global warming is the increase in the earth's temperature.

That means the earth is getting hotter and hotter, the planet that we live on.

As humans, we are causing earth to get warmer due to the way that we live our lives by driving cars, flying to different countries and using lots of electricity, and even by throwing out food that we don't want to eat.

This contributes to making the earth warmer over time.

As you can see, the polar habitat is full of ice.

This ice and snow is home to lots of different animals, and it can be very dangerous to their livelihood if the ice starts to melt.

You can see here some of the different animals that live in the polar habitat.

Can you point to some of the animals that you recognise on the screen? Tell your screen what you can see.

That's right, I can see polar bears, penguins, warluses and Arctic foxes.

All of these animals need the ice to stay so that they can survive in their habitat.

If the earth continues to get warmer and warmer, more and more of the ice is going to melt, just like when you have ice in your drink, and it melts as it gets warmer.

With less ice for the animals to live on these animals won't have anywhere to survive and they won't have any food to eat.

Lets find out a little bit more about how it's going to affect some of the animals in the polar habitat.

Here, you can see some polar bears and some penguins swimming.

Even though polar bears and penguins are really good at swimming, they can't stay in the water all the time, it uses a lot and a lot of their energy, but the more that the ice is melting and the sea levels are rising, which means there's more water because the ice is turning to water, polar bears are being forced to use more of their energy swimming and they get tired really easily.

Usually they spend a lot of their time walking around on the ice and waiting for seals to pop out of holes in the ice so that they can hunt them.

But if they have to spend all of their time hunting in the oceans, then they're going to get too tired, and polar bears can lose a lot of weight from swimming too much.

They can even die from the lack of food and energy, so it's really important that the ice stays there for as long as possible to create a home for the polar bears.

Penguins also spend a lot of the year on the ice, even though they like to hunt in the water.

Baby penguins can die if they spend too long in the water because their feathers aren't waterproof yet and they can get too cold.

If more of the ice carries on melting they will have even less space for their babies to stay safe and hunt food on the ice.

We're going to have a go at looking at the effects of global warming using some ice and a plastic container, just like you can see on the screen.

Now, you can see that I've already put some chunks of ice in there and my polar bear is sitting happily on the ice.

That is the water around the ice, but that's just how the typical sea level should look in the polar habitat.

I would like you to pause the video here, get some ice and a container for your animal and press play when you're ready.

Well done, everyone, you should have your ice and your animals set up now.

As you can see from my experiment it's been a few hours since I last took a picture and my room has got warmer and warmer just like the earth getting warmer from global warming.

You can see that the ice has already started to melt quite a bit, the polar bear has less ice to live on and the water level is rising in my plastic container, just like the sea levels in polar habitats.

And again, when I've come back a couple of hours later, the polar bear only has one tiny, tiny bits of ice to live on, and the sea levels have risen so high that the polar bear has almost nowhere to stay.

On the screen you can see pictures of my experiment from the start to the end of my experiment.

What do you notice about the ice in the pictures? Tell your screen.

In the beginning of the experiment there was lots of ice for the polar bear to walk around on, hunt and fish, but as the day went on and it got hotter and hotter, the ice melted and there was less ice for the polar bear to stay safe on.

Here I've got some pictures of the water from the start of my experiment to the end of my experiment.

What do you notice about the water in my container? Tell your screen.

That's right, you can see that at the beginning, the water, there's only a tiny bit of water in my container in the beginning but the water level rises and rises and more and more of the ice is melting in my container.

And this is what's happening to the sea levels.

As the ice in the polar habitats melts the sea levels get higher and higher because the ice turns to water.

This means that the polar bears and other life living in the Arctic will have to spend more energy swimming and it will be harder for them to hunt and find food.

I know you've already got your ice and your tupperware were set up for the day.

So I'd like you to make sure that you go back and have a look at lots of points throughout the day and see what happens to the ice and the water levels in your experiment.

So, what can we do to help? We want these animals to have a safe place to live, where they've got food, shelter, and water.

To do that, there are some changes that we need to make to the way that we live to slow down global warming.

How do you think we can do this? Tell your screen.

That's right, we could walk more or cycle to more places rather than using a car, we could cut down on the amount that we fly on aeroplanes , or we could stop flying altogether and we can try to throw away less food by making sure that we only buy enough for what we need to eat and we eat everything within it sell by day.

We can use renewable electricity that is clean and does not cause global warming as well.

So, there are lots of things that we can do to help.

Well done everyone, make sure that you keep watching your ice and your animal in your tupperware and see what happens throughout the day.

See if you can explain it to somebody in your household, a teddy or toy, and make sure that you start to make those changes to help the polar animals.

Bye everyone, see you next time.