Tenth-grade biology students in Phil Hertzog’s classes at Stadium High School listened closely as Zoe Stoy, a Wilson High School junior, called upon them to take action to save polar bears in the Arctic. Stoy spent a week last October studying polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, as an Arctic Ambassador under the sponsorship of the Point Defiance Zoo and Polar Bears International.
Stoy told the Stadium students that global warming has caused melting of sea ice in the Arctic. Polar bears travel on sea ice in search of food. On the ice, the bears wait for hours patiently next to seal breathing holes and then pounce and feed on seals that emerge from the water. With the disappearance of sea ice, the polar bears now travel farther for food and have to swim across breaks in the ice. Many bears have drowned and others are starving. Stoy said the polar bears will become extinct in the next 50 to 100 years if no action is taken to curb global warming.
Stoy asked the Stadium students to take action to save the polar bears by helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, a major cause of global warming, and encouraged students to take four simple actions:
- Reuse, reduce and recycle
- Reduce the time your car idles at the drive through by turning off the ignition
- Turn off the lights when you leave a room
- Power down your computers and unplug your chargers when not in use. Stoy said these actions would conserve energy and reduce the carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere from power generation.
Many of the Stadium students seemed receptive to Stoy’s call for action and asked questions about polar bears and her one-week stay in Arctic Canada. Stoy showed them a polar bear skull model and fur samples along with tundra rocks.