If the polar ice caps melt completely then the Earth has gone through a rapid global warming process. With the melting ice caps, the ocean water levels will have increased causing a change everywhere. Low lying land that was one inhabitable for animals and people, would now be under water. Flooding will have occurred in many places. Plants and animals that were indigenous to cold ecosystems will now struggle for survival. However, most will probably end up going extinct. Also, the fresh water from the glaciers would melt and change the salinity of ocean water. This would also affect the lively hood of many species of coral, tropical fish, and other sea life that require a tender balance of salinity. Most other sea life could not withstand the great swing in pH that would occur in the water. For humans, our food supply from plants to animals would be in jeopardy. With plants becoming extinct our oxygen supply would also be dwindling. So as one can see, if the ice caps were to melt, the entire life as we know it here on Earth would not be the same and we would be looking at becoming extinct like the dinosaurs did when the Earth turned cold.
Other questions:
How could you have students use this experience and relate it to land, plants, animals, etc?
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Jodi, it is scary just reading your words, but it is true. Many will not survive. And the scary part is that some countries may disappear and be subject to everyone's mercy to take them in and build them new homes. Who has that generosity? World hunger already exists, I wonder how bad it will get.
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