We were working hard again today to see if we could make some progress into our Polar Bear Inquiry. Today we reviewed what we already know about a Polar Bear’s habitat and appearance. Our discussion led to a talk about camouflage and why a polar bear would need it. Knowing the animals that polar bears share the Arctic with, we decided they don’t use their camouflage to hide from animals that want to eat them, but that they use it so they can be sneaky on the ice and hunt for seals.
We watched a couple of video clips, including the ones here, and followed up with a science experiment of our own. We put a frozen block of blue water (our iceberg), in a bin of water and placed a polar bear on top of the ice. We hypothesized that the ice would melt and then the polar bear wouldn’t be able to surprise the seal. Sure enough, the ice melted by the end of the day, and our polar bear was stuck swimming, with no icebergs to rest on.
Now that we know the ice is melting and our polar bears can’t hunt, it’s time to figure out how we can fix this problem. Stay tuned!!
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