THE ECOLOGICAL QUESTION

Is there evidence for global warming in long term data on changes in dates of ice cover in three Wisconsin Lakes?

ECOLOGICAL CONTENT

Effects of climate change on ecological systems.

WHAT STUDENTS DO

Students plot more than 100 years of data on dates of "ice on" and "ice off" and duration of ice cover for three Wisconsin Lakes. They examine patterns of variation at different time scales to see the importance of long-term data.

SKILLS

Interpreting data, making inferences from trends or patterns in data, making spatial and temporal comparisons of ecological systems.

ASSESSABLE OUTCOMES

Interpretation of data, analyzing trends and patterns in spatial and temporal data, and constructing explanations about the links between abiotic and biotic factors on ecological systems from large-scale data.

SOURCE

North Temperate Lakes LTER archive (http://lterquery.limnology.wisc.edu/abstract_new.jsp?id=PHYS)

AUTHORS

Robert E. Bohanan¹, Marianne Krasny², and Adam Welman³

1 - Center for Biology Education, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI 53706, rbohanan@wisc.edu

2 - Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, mek2@cornell.edu

3 - Center for the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Credits for this Data Set: John Magnuson, Barbara Benson, and David Balsiger of the North Temperate Lakes Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) generously provided access to data, comments, and suggestions. Credits for this Volume of Data Sets: Robert Waide and staff at the U.S. LTER Network Office provided access, comments, and suggestions related to LTER databases. TIEE: Bruce Grant and Charlene D’Avanzo provided very helpful comments on the development of the activities, teaching approaches, and ideas and resources for assessment.

CITATION

Bohanan, Robert E., Marianne Krasny, and Adam Welman. April 2005, posting date.
Changes in Lake Ice: Ecosystem Response to Global Change, Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, Vol. 3: Issues: Data Set #1 [online].
http://tiee.ecoed.net/vol/v3/issues/data_sets/lake_ice/abstract.html