Glaciers

Glaciers Screenshot
  • Glaciers
  • Climate
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Topics

  • Glaciers
  • Climate

Description

Adjust mountain snowfall and temperature to see the glacier grow and shrink. Use scientific tools to measure thickness, velocity and glacial budget.

Sample Learning Goals

  • Explain how environmental conditions (temperature and precipitation) impact glacial mass budget; identify where snow accumulates in a glacier and justify why.
  • Explain how ice moves within a glacier; describe and illustrate flow within a glacier.
  • Explain or illustrate (demonstrate) how glaciers (i) stay at equilibrium, (ii) grow/advance, (iii) shrink/retreat, and (iv) form; compare climatic conditions leading to each.
  • Determine and illustrate how multiple advance-retreat cycles affect the record of glacial end moraines.
Version 2.04

Teacher-Submitted Activities

Investigating Climate Change at the Macroscopic and Microscopic Level A gold star indicates high-quality, inquiry-based activities that follow the PhET design guidelines. This contribution was designed by PhET. Amy Rouinfar MS
HS
Lab Earth Science
Glaciers Earth Science A gold star indicates high-quality, inquiry-based activities that follow the PhET design guidelines. Ryan Tucek HS Lab Earth Science
How do PhET simulations fit in my middle school program? This contribution was designed by PhET. Sarah Borenstein MS Other Biology
Earth Science
Chemistry
Physics
Alignment of PhET sims with NGSS This contribution was designed by PhET. Trish Loeblein updated by Diana López HS
MS
Other Chemistry
Earth Science
Physics
Biology
MS and HS TEK to Sim Alignment Elyse Zimmer HS
MS
Other Biology
Physics
Chemistry
Investigating Glaciers John Judkins MS
HS
Guided
Lab
Earth Science

Windows Macintosh Linux
Microsoft Windows
XP/Vista/7/8.1/10
Latest version of Java
OS X 10.9.5 or later
Latest version of Java
Latest version of Java

Design Team Third-party Libraries Thanks To
  • Wendy Adams
  • Bob Anderson
  • Andrea Blair
  • Chris Malley (developer)
  • Archie Paulson (lead)
  • Kathy Perkins
  • Dylan Ward
  • JFreeChart
  • Piccolo