Engage with the latest Data Puzzle focused on the impact of rising temperatures on tundra ecosystems.

Join us on Thursday, March 17th from 3-4 pm PT, 4-5 pm MT, 5-6 pm CT, 6-7 pm ET as developer Jon Griffith and Ambitious Science Teaching co-author Melissa Braaten describe their newest Data Puzzle, The Tipping Point, a 2-day MS/HS resource in which students analyze ecological data to explain how rising temperatures are affecting the hearty tundra plant, moss campion, and consider what that might mean for the rest of the ecosystem.

The Tipping Point Overview

For more than two decades, ecologists Bill Morris, Megan DeMarche, and Dan Doak have been visiting field sites across North America to monitor the vital rates (survival, growth, and reproduction) of a hearty tundra plant, moss campion, and compare them to observed changes in the plants’ environments (e.g., temperature). In this Data Puzzle, students engage with an interactive reading before analyzing and interpreting authentic datasets to discover that rising temperatures increase the reproductive success of moss campion up to a certain point, the tipping point, beyond which the plant's reproductive rates dramatically decline! The results of this study inspire many other interesting questions, What does this mean for the rest of the tundra ecosystem? And what other climate "tipping points" should we be aware of?

About Data Puzzles 

Inspired by our friends at Data Nuggets, Data Puzzles combine classroom-friendly scientific datasets with the research-backed pedagogical practices of Ambitious Science Teaching to give your students the ultimate inquiry-based learning experience.