In this activity, students build simple models to demonstrate the differing impacts of melting land ice and sea ice on sea level rise.
Although this activity uses climate change and sea level rise as its primary context, it can also be used to explore Physical World concepts:
- Objects in liquid displace the liquid.
- The amount of liquid an object displaces is directly related to its volume.
- As a result, when ice melts in a container of water, the volume of water in the container does not change.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
- identify that ice floating in water does not change the volume of water when it melts
- discuss how the activity models the link between melting land ice and sea level rise
- make predictions about the potential impacts of melting land ice and sea ice.
Download the Word file (see link below) for:
- background information for teachers
- equipment list
- student instructions
- extension ideas/prompting questions for teachers.
Nature of science
In science, models are often representations of an object or process that enable predictions to be developed and tested. In this activity, students use models to demonstrate the differing impacts that melting land ice and sea ice may have on sea level rise. This fits into the investigating in science aspect of the NZC.
