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 Melting Arctic Ice

Melting Arctic Ice
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 4 to 6
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   6.17

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    stark, successful, gradual, properly, affected, based, entire, billion, solution, rate, especially, likely, acquire, tragic, sheets, lead
     content words:    Greenland Ice Sheet, Ice Sheet, One Inuit

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Melting Arctic Ice
By Colleen Messina 		  
1     What do you think of when you hear the word "arctic?" Most likely, a vast sheet of shiny ice comes to mind. Unfortunately, Arctic ice is melting faster than ever before. About 552 billion tons of ice melted in the summer of 2007. This amount of melting ice causes many problems. As one scientist put it, "The Arctic is screaming!"
 
2     Scientists use satellites to track the amount of ice that melts each year. One area that they study is called the Greenland Ice Sheet. This area is an enormous body of ice that covers about 80% of Greenland. This ice sheet was created by layers of snow compressing for over one hundred thousand years. It changes color with the seasons. It is a clear, aquamarine color in the winter. When the top ice layer melts, it is pure white in the summer.
 
3     The recent increase in the rate of melting ice surprises many scientists. The position of the Greenland Ice Sheet makes it melt more quickly than ice in other areas. The ice sheets and glaciers are melting because of global warming. Global warming is the gradual increase of Earth's surface air temperature. However, even scientists do not agree about the reasons for global warming. It is a big debate in the scientific community.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable
Extended Activities:

1.  Pretend that you are in charge of a large scientific foundation that is studying global warming and its effects on the melting ice. Design a poster for a contest that will be sent to scientists all over the world to solve this problem. What would the prize be for the scientist who comes up with a solution?

2.  Life in an Arctic village would be very different from your life today. Describe what you think a day in an Arctic community would be like.


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