This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores how elementary teachers can move from a study of the weather at home to the weather of the polar regions through hands-on activity, reading, and discussion.

This article highlights children's literature about weather and climate, the polar regions, and climate change for use in the elementary classroom.

This article explains the difference between weather and climate, the role of the polar regions in the global climate system, and how climate change is affecting these areas. Links to content knowledge resources and the National Science Education Standards are provided.

This article assembles free resources from the Weather and Climate issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine into a unit outline based on the 5E learning cycle framework. Outlines are provided for Grades K-2 and 3-5.

This video segment adapted from NOVA uses satellite imagery to illustrate the Gulf Stream's path and animations to explain how atmospheric phenomena cause it to move. [1:51]

In this scenario-based activity, students design ways to either clean a water source or find a new water source, depending on given hypothetical family scenarios. They act as engineers to draw and write about what they could do to provide water to a community facing a water crisis. They also learn the basic steps of the engineering design process.

Students determine their carbon footprints by answering questions about their everyday lifestyle choices. Then they engineer plans to reduce them. Students learn about their personal impacts on global climate change and how they can help the environment.

In this story, a brother and a sister choose clothes to wear for different types of weather. Includes audio readaloud feature in 15 additional languages, while text is in English.

Chris explores the flooded forests of Congaree to learn about abiotic and biotic factors.

How does our climate affect us? How do we decide what to wear each day? What factors determine if our clothing choices are comfortable? What is the source of our water? Students explore characteristics that define climatic regions. They learn how tropical, desert, coastal and alpine climates result in different lifestyle, clothing, water source and food options for the people who live there. They learn that a location's latitude, altitude, land features, weather conditions, and distance from large bodies of water, determines its climate. Students discuss how engineers help us adapt to all climates by designing clothing, shelters, weather technologies and clean water systems.

This article points out that there is no one official definition for the Arctic. Then the author identifies definitions ranging from geography to climate to culture and more. Maps and other visuals illustrate the definitions. The author suggests that defining the Arctic can be an example for K-Grade 5 students of the nature and challenges of classification systems. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears.

Dry Tortugas is one of a several small tropical islands made up ancient coral reefs called the Florida Keys. So why are these islands instead of reefs? Chris learns how glaciers and global climate impacts sea levels with the help from special guest, paleoclimatologist Dr. Rocio Paola Caballero-Gill.

When you walk or drive around your neighborhood, what do the roofs look like? What if you lived in an area with a different climate, how might that affect the style of roofs that you see? Through this introductory engineering activity, students explore the advantages of different roof shapes for different climates or situations. They observe and discuss what happens in a teacher demo when a "snow load" (sifted cups of flour) is placed on three model roof shapes.

In this video segment adapted from United Tribes Technical College, listen as six Native American students share their concerns, hopes, and knowledge about climate change.

Students will learn the difference between global, prevailing and local winds. In this activity, students will make a wind vane out of paper, a straw and a soda bottle and use it to measure wind direction over time. Finally, they will analyze their data to draw conclusions about the prevailing winds in their area.

This site from the National Humanities Center provides the story of the struggle to inhabit the West in spite of the dry climate. With questions for student discussion, online resources, scholars debate and bibliography.

Detailed, comprehensive information on countries and people all over the world. Great tool for discovering facts on world issues, seeing photos, and just exploring the world in general. Also includes quizzes based on the website's content.

Learn about the environmental conditions of Death Valley in this video from Nature.