• Lake Ice Out Essay
• Learning Results
• Maine Plant Watch

Supplemental Activities

Additional Learning Opportunities

Other suggested learning opportunities for the data include

(1) Graph weekly temperatures from your school or other schools around the state.   Figure the average daily temperature for the state for each week and graph it.

(2) Graph weekly snow depths from your school or other schools around the state. 

(3) You may wish each student to keep his or her own journal of spring: recording robins, frogs, tulips and forsythia blooming, the ice out of a local pond, the temperature at their house when they get up, when they first mow the lawn, or the daytime high temperature picked out of a local newspaper or the nightly news. They may also wish to record any activities they see happening around town that have a positive or negative impact on frogs and robins (i.e. new development, roads, filling wetlands, clearing of trees).

(4) While you are studying how spring is springing in Maine you can submitt your data to the Maine Plant Watch, or why not submit your data to the national monitoring site, Journey North. This way, you can see what happens both here in Maine and across the country.

Weather/Monitoring Local Ice Out

Ice-out is when the winter ice cover on a lake breaks up and leaves the lake for the year.  Recording yearly ice-out dates serves as a good, natural indicator of the average temperature.  It is also a common way of comparing the pace of spring's arrival from year to year. 

• For more information about read observing ice out.
• For information about the science behind ice out read Seasonal Magic: How Ice Out in Lakes Helps Nourish Life.
• For a personal story read Fishing at Ice Out.
• Determining lake ice-out:  Help your students decide upon a local lake to monitor for the ice-out date.  Hold a contest in your classroom for who can guess the correct date for this year's ice-out.  Students can research past ice-out dates by contacting the lake association or searching online for ice-out dates of previous years to help them make an educated guess.  Check back with your sources or monitor the status of the lake directly to determine the date of ice-out. The student that guesses closest to the exact date wins the classroom contest. When your class has agreed upon the date of ice-out.
• Maine Lake Charts : A great site to send your own lakes ice out data and compare data from previous years. Data on lake ice out is available 2003 through 2005.

Measuring Temperature/Snow and Ice Out Activity

Tools needed: A hardwood stake 1x1 or 2x2 inch with a point on the end - 48 inches long (in southern Maine or areas with little or no snow you may be able to use a yard stick or ruler), hammer (optional), recording table/sheet. Thermometer in Fahrenheit (we recommend for safety that you do not use a mercury thermometer.)

Before you get started: With a yard stick or other measuring device at least 36 inches long, mark off 1/2 inch intervals on the stake starting just above the point.

Starting February 16 and every Wednesday thereafter, have a student record the temperature outside the school and the snow depth (if there is any)at 9:00 am.

(1) Measuring temperature:  Have the students go to a shady spot around the school at least 100 feet from the building at 9:00 am Wednesday.  Hold the thermometer at arms length (or you could put a small hook on the snow measuring stake).  The goal is to try to minimize the influence body heat or the sun may have on the temperature.   After waiting at least a minute, read the thermometer as quickly as possible.   Do not touch or breathe on the thermometer.  Make sure that their eyes are level with the top of the alcohol column, otherwise the reading will be too high or too low.  Students should record the temperature either in their journals or on their data sheet.

(2) To measure snow depth students should pick a site where the snow is undisturbed (no one has walked, plowed ...), in the open, away from trees and buildings and fairly level - and avoid south facing slopes. (Try to avoid things that would influence snow depth.) Take the hardwood stake (or yard stick) and drive it through the snow. The goal is to get just the point into the earth. Students should read the snow depth off the marks made on the stake. After removing the stake have students check to be sure that the stake was not driven farther than the point into the earth. If it has been they will need to subtract the amount of the stake that was in the earth from their measurement.  Students should record their results in their journal or on their data sheet.

(3) Climate Time Machine Activity In "The Climate Time Machine" activity, students will look for "simulated pollen in lake sediment". Based on actual pollen data collected from Battleground Lake in southwest Washington, students will track how the climate has changed 20,000 years ago to the present

Project Learning Tree (off-site)

For more information on Project Learning Tree Activities, please visit the Project Learning Tree website at www.plt.org. For Project Learning Tree activities and correlation to Maine State Learning Results, visit www.mainetreefoundation.org.

ARM Education Program Lessons (off-site)

Arctic Microclimates (off-site) Students will discover the variation in microclimates and how scientists determine average global temperatures to study climate change. This activity can be done indoors or out. Maine learning results information.

If you are interested in receiving information on any of the activities featured , please contact Christine Smith at Christine.P.Smith@maine.gov or (207) 287-7663 or write to 17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0017.