The Melting Icebergs
I would like to begin by stating that I have a multitude of concerns regarding the semantics that are used throughout this activity. The title is “Melting Icebergs,” however throughout the activity mention is also made to “polar ice caps” (pp. 3-5) and “glaciers” (p. 3) (Laureate, 2010). All three of these terms are different and have different implications on world-wide water levels should they melt. According to Dictionary.com (2010), an iceberg is “a massive body of floating ice that has broken away from a glacier or ice field,” a polar ice cap is “either of the regions around the poles of the Earth that are permanently covered with ice,” and a glacier is “a large mass of ice moving very slowly through a valley or spreading outward from a center.” These definitions indicate that icebergs are present in the water, polar ice caps are found both on land and covering water as one pole is covered by land (Antarctica) while the other is covered by water (Arctic Circle), and glaciers are only found on land. The results of this experiment would be very different if we were to simulate all three different situations, as would the world-wide effects. Since this activity simulates only what would happen if floating ice (icebergs) were to melt, that is what I will address in my response, despite the fact that the question asks, “What happens if the polar ice caps melt?”

If icebergs were to melt there would be no overall effect on the water levels world-wide. I know this to be true, even before I experiment, because the ice that is floating in water has already displaced its volume. Because the icebergs have already displaced their volume, there will be no increase in volume in ocean water and no rise in water levels. This can be seen when you have ice in your drink. When the ice cubes melt, there is not more liquid in your glass; the glass does not overflow.

Questions I have about this inquiry activity are, were the authors of this activity trying to confuse the children who would be performing this activity? Was the intent to make the teachers studying this activity look at the wording used critically and see the discrepancies in the activity? Did the authors of this activity have a hidden agenda in which they want us to believe that melting ice at the poles would not have the world-wide effects that are commonly believed by scientists? My father is very much a right-winged republican and this is the sort of activity that he would have me do to “prove” to me that even if the ice caps were to melt, it would not have the drastic effects that us “crazy liberal scientists” believe. Did the authors of this activity design it to make us question the activity or did they really believe that it was a valid experiment to explore the consequences of melting ice caps? Questions I have about implementing this into my classroom are, how would I be able to preserve enough ice to make this activity possible in class? Would my students have enough background knowledge about all of these different concepts to come to the same conclusion that I have? What activities would we need to do beforehand for them to see the errors that I saw?
 
References
Dictionary.com, LLC. (2010) Definitions retrieved on March 21, 2010 from http://dictionary.reference.com.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2010). Melting Icebergs Experiment. Baltimore, MD.