Oceans aren’t just giant bathtubs – they’re full of life, from the tiniest plankton to massive whales and vibrant coral reefs!
We’ve got a resource to help you answer the questions! Check it out here.
Time:15 min
Difficulty:Easy
When snow covers their habitat, it makes food-finding more challenging for birds and animals. This winter, you can be a birdy buddy by helping our feathered friends find an extra food source.
Fill your shallow bowl/pan/box with bird seeds
Sift through the birdseed and investigate the different seeds! It’s a fun sensory experience and you’ll get to do a little quality control work for your fluttering friends.
Tie a string to the top end of your pinecone.
Once done, cover your pinecones in thick honey or suet.
Once the pinecone is covered, roll it around in your birdseed until it is all covered.
TIP:
Leave the very top of your pinecones un-honey-ed for easier handling your string!
Tie the pinecone feeder to your favourite tree, and wait for your flying feathered friends to come and feast! You might get lucky and have some other friendly visitors.
Hi! My name is Nick Paroshy. I study polar bears at the University of Alberta. I’m learning all about how polar bears move through the Arctic Circle. Because of climate change, some of the sea ice that polar bears depend on to get around and hunt for their prey is melting. I’ve been studying polar bears who live in two areas of the Arctic: one called the Beaufort Sea, and the other called Hudson Bay. This will help me and my team better understand how polar bears move on the sea ice. The more we know about their movement, the more we’ll be able to help them adapt to climate change.
When you adopt a polar bear from Earth Rangers this year, you’ll be supporting me as I track polar bears and work through a lot of complicated math to find patterns in their movements. You’ll receive a cuddly polar bear stuffie with soft white fur, along with an adoption certificate, a trading card, and a poster for your locker or your bedroom wall.
Check out the adoption section in the Earth Rangers App to learn more, and check out these cool photos we took while tracking polar bears!
This photo was taken from a helicopter high up above the ice where the polar bears live. Although they may look cute and cuddly, polar bears are wild animals, and it’s unsafe for human beings to get close to them. That’s why polar bear researchers like me don’t walk around looking for bears–we scout them out from the safety of a helicopter.
Don’t worry–this polar bear is safe and sound, just unconscious – kind of like being in a deep sleep! In order to track polar bears and learn more about their movements, we need to tag them with tracking devices. These tracking devices let me use a computer to follow them around.
But remember: polar bears are wild animals, and it’s not safe for human beings to get close to them. We can’t ask a polar bear politely if we can tag it. Instead, we tranquilize the polar bear. This means that we give the bear a dose of medicine that sends it to sleep for a little while–just long enough for us to tag the polar bear and leave safely.
First, from the safety and comfort of our helicopter, we aim a dart at the polar bear. When we’re sure that the dart will land safely on the polar bear, we send it out. We watch the dart fly out and connect with the polar bear’s skin. Then we wait as the medicine makes the bear calm and sleepy enough to lie down, close its eyes, and become unconscious. At that point, we land the helicopter and begin to measure and tag the polar bear so we can track it.
Here is a photo of me measuring a polar bear’s head. We need to collect all sorts of measurements to compare bears to each other. Once we have all our measurements, I fit the tracking device securely on the polar bear. Then my team and I return to our helicopter and fly off to find another bear.
Bears come in all sizes. They can be kids or teenagers or parents. Some bears are huge! See how big this bear is compared to me! Look at my hand next to its paw! Polar bears have very large claws which can seriously hurt humans, but help them hunt seals.
Check out this photo of a ringed seal that I saw during my journey! We call them ringed seals because of the circular patterns on their fur. These creatures happen to be polar bears’ favourite food. If there aren’t enough ringed seals, then polar bears don’t have enough to eat. That’s why it’s important for us to conserve ringed seals along with polar bears.
Studying polar bears doesn’t mean that I spend all my time flying over the Arctic Circle in a helicopter! Once I’ve tagged enough polar bears with tracking devices, I come home and study the data that they’re sending me. It’s my job to find patterns in the data, talk about what I’m finding with other scientists, and write down everything that I’ve learned.
Right now, I’m focusing on putting all of my research on polar bears together into a very long piece of writing called a thesis. When that’s done, I’ll publish it in a journal. This isn’t the kind of journal that you hide under your mattress to keep your secrets safe from your little siblings–it’s a magazine that scientists read to learn about the discoveries of other scientists.
I’ll also defend my thesis in front of a group of my teachers. They’ll ask me all kinds of questions about polar bears, about my research methods, and about everything I’ve discovered. When that’s over, I’ll graduate with a Master’s Degree in Science.
If you want to research polar bears when you grow up, you might go through this process someday, too! But whether or not you decide to become a scientist like me, I hope that you’ll stay interested in polar bears, climate change, and the Arctic Circle. We need kids like you to stay curious and compassionate so that polar bears and their icy habitat will be safe for generations to come.
We need your help! This animal is trying to tell us something but we can’t figure it out! Do you know what are these sea lions saying?
Time:45 min
Difficulty:Hard
Do you want something unbearably tasty and cute?
Why not try this pawsivitely delicious polar bear cupcakes!
Step 1: In one bowl, add your butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract in a bowl and beat until creamy.
Tip: If you do not have a mixer, use the back of a fork to mash them together.
Step 2: Add the flour, baking powder and salt to your creamy mixture and stir it all together until it forms a batter. Gradually pour the milk in to help you break up any dry clumps.
Step 3: With the help of an adult, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Scoop your batter into your cupcake liners, filling each about 2/3 full.
TIP: If you do not have a special tray, stack 2 or 3 cupcake liners into one another to support the batter.
Step 4: Bake your cupcakes for 15 to 20 minutes. You can test if it’s done by sliding a wooden toothpick (or knife) into the center of a cupcake. If it comes out clean it’s ready!
Let your cupcakes cool for 5-10 mins. Once they’re ready, spread your white icing over its top.
Step 5: Cut a banana into slices and divide them into two bunches. Cut one bunch into halves and keep the other round.
Step 6: Take two banana halves and lay them on the edge of your cupcake (this is your bear’s ears). Add one more round slice to make the bear’s snout.
Step 7: Place two chocolate chips to make your bear’s eyes. Add another on top of the snout to make a cute little nose!
Head to the Adoptions Section in the App
Waddaya at, listeners? That’s nefinese for “hello”, or “what’s up”. What’s nefinese? The slang spoken in Newfoundland. Today Emma is excited to explore the magnificent Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, Canada, but watch out: It looks like she’s about to into stumble a sticky mishap. Tune in to find out more.
After visiting the US to meet Ryan in her last park adventure and taking a break for New Year’s, Emma is back to her normal vacation tour of national parks! Today, she’s visiting Gros Morne National Park, which is located in both the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador!
Located on the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Gros Morne National Park is over 1,800 square kilometers in size and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which means it’s protected land. And thank goodness for that! This park is someplace special.
While hiking the Gros Morne Park, Emma shared with us a useful trick on how to tell different coniferous tree needles. Do you know it?
Fir needles are flat and fat.
Spruce needles are sharp and square.
And Pine needles grow in bunches of 2, 3 or 5!
Next time you pass a conifer you can use that trick to figure out which type it is! Let us know what you found!
Emma decided to avoid these trails because it gets so many visitors, but one of the most famous trails of Gros Morne are the “Tablelands”. The Tablelands are extremely unique; hiking on all that barren, brown rock was just like being on another planet. The Tablelands are made of peridotite, which isn’t very nutrient-rich, so very little grows there.
Earth Rangers, did you know when you hike in this part of the park, you’re hiking on the Earth’s mantle?
That’s right! The Earth’s mantle is not something we normally see – it is found under the Earth’s curst (that’s the layer we live on). The mantle at the Tablelands is visible to us because of an ancient collision between tectonic plates, which caused it to rise.
Emma may have failed to find the elusive pine marten, but there are absolutely cute pictures of these shy animals for you to see!
When Pine Marten kits leave their mothers, they go set up their territories, careful to avoid direct competition with other pine martens. This can be very difficult, especially in lands with many predators, habitat loss, and humans. These fluffy creatures have been hunted because of their dense and soft fur – which people thought was perfect for scarves, coats, and hats.
Due to their threatened, and even endangered status in Canada, it is illegal to hunt these adorable animals! Thanks to that, they’ve made a steady return, and the Newfoundland marten has managed to change from endangered to threatened in that region.
Do you have a favorite Pine Marten fact to share, or one of another animal found at the Gros Morne National park? Should Emma head to Everglades next, or check out another National Park instead?
Let you know in the comments below!
Hi, I’m Yifeng Wang! I study geography at Queen’s University, and this year, I’m studying the permafrost peatlands of Newfoundland and Labrador, where herds of caribou roam. In the peatlands, thick layers of decaying plants called peat help the ground stay frozen. Lichen and plants that caribou love to eat grow all over the peatlands.
But because of climate change, caribou are having a harder time finding food to eat and places to live. I’m studying the ways that the permafrost is changing so that we can figure out how to protect caribou for generations to come.
When you adopt a caribou from Earth Rangers, you’ll be supporting my research in the peatlands and helping me keep this vital ecosystem safe for all the animals and people who live there. You’ll receive a cute and cuddly plush toy, an adoption certificate, a trading card, and a poster full of fun facts for your bedroom wall or your bulletin board. Check the adoption section in the Earth Rangers App for more information!
In the meantime, I’m so excited to update you on all the work I’ve been doing in the peatlands since last summer! I’ll also answer all your biggest questions about caribou and their chilly habitat.
I went back up to Labrador in July and August for my third summer field campaign dedicated to investigations of peatland permafrost in the region. During this summer’s field campaign, I focused on downloading data from our network of peatland permafrost monitoring stations that are set up all along the coast of Labrador, from Blanc-Sablon, Quebec, up to Nain, Nunatsiavut, Labrador. At these stations, we have sensors that record air temperature, ground surface temperature, ground temperature, and snow depth. We also have trail cameras that help us monitor the wildlife that moves through our study sites.
Here are some photos that we captured on our trail cameras! They photographed red foxes, caribou, and Canada geese.
During one of our field visits this summer, we were really excited to see that we were not the only ones visiting our site. A little caribou family actually passed through while we were there!
We also dedicated a section of our field season to conducting geophysical surveys. This means that we study the rocks and other substances that make up the Earth, and the physical processes that happen on, in, and above ground. This helps us understand where the permafrost is located below the ground, as well as how deep it is. The transition between permafrost and non-permafrost at these sites is quite sharp, and despite permafrost being found beneath the ground’s surface, we can see this transition pretty easily through differences in vegetation and elevation, or height.
Since returning from the field in late August, I’ve been keeping busy with all of the field data that we collected. I’ve been able to put together long-term ground temperature records from our monitoring stations, with some dating as far back as 2014! These temperature records, which make up the only permafrost temperature records in Labrador, have helped us to understand the thermal, or heat-related, changes to permafrost peatlands in the region. They help us supplement the physical changes we’ve observed in permafrost peatlands through geophysical surveys, drone surveys, aerial photographs, and satellite images.
My next steps are to use the temperature records from these sites to build a model that will help us understand how peatland permafrost in coastal Labrador is expected to change from now until 2100 under continued climate change (changes in temperature, weather, and precipitation, another word for rain, snow, and hail) and ecosystem change (changes in vegetation and hydrology, which is how water moves in relation to earth).
We got tons of great guesses on Part 1 of this Pixel Puzzler and now it’s time for the answer. Are you ready for the great reveal? Find out if you got it right!
The answer to this Pixel Puzzler is (drum roll please) a Mantis! How did you do? Tell us in the comments!
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