Exploring the Arctic for Kids: Arctic Animals and Climates for Children - FreeSchool

You're watching Free School! At the northernmost point of our world lies a land of ice and snow, a land of darkness and light, where strange creatures have peculiarly adapted to the harsh conditions. Despite extremely cold winters, life flourishes in the short, cool summers, making this fragile ecosystem extraordinary. Come explore the Arctic, one of the most remote and beautiful places on the planet. Due to the tilt of the Earth's axis, the Arctic receives a lot of sunlight in summer and very little in winter. As spring gives way to summer, the days get longer and longer, until finally there comes a day when the sun doesn't set at all.

When daylight remains throughout the night, it is called the Midnight Sun, something that occurs on the days around the summer solstice. As autumn turns into winter, the days become shorter and shorter, until finally there comes a day when the sun does not rise and darkness lasts a full 24 hours. This is called Polar Night. The polar night may be long, but there is a light in the darkness and its name is aurora. The Northern Lights, also known as the Northern Lights, are a light show in the night sky that is only visible near the North Pole. Although they can appear at any time, they can only be seen at night, as they are too faint to be seen in sunlight.

The Northern Lights have fascinated people for thousands of years! Some people once thought they were spirits dancing in the sky; others thought they were dragon flames. Today's scientists have learned that auroras are caused by charged particles from the sun interacting with Earth's magnetosphere, exciting gases in the atmosphere until it glows. Auroras will also occur in the skies around the South Pole, where they are called the southern lights. Any place on Earth far enough north to have at least one night in which the sun does not set and one day in which the sun does not rise is considered within the Arctic Circle.

The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line that surrounds the North Pole at about 66 degrees north latitude. The Arctic is primarily ocean, but also includes parts of Greenland, Canada, the United States, Russia, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland. Lands on the southern edges of the Arctic Circle are generally covered by tundra. The tundra is vast and, for the most part, treeless. The short Arctic summers are too cold and brief to allow trees to flourish here, but there is also another barrier: permafrost. Beneath a thin active layer of soil that thaws and refreezes each year, the ground is permanently frozen.

The plants that survive, mostly grass, moss and shrubs, grow close to the ground and have shallow roots. Although there is little rain in the tundra, the summer is very humid. The frozen top layer of soil thaws, but water cannot penetrate the soil beyond the frozen barrier of permafrost. Since temperatures rarely exceed 54 degrees Fahrenheit or 12 degrees Celsius, very little water evaporates. Instead, it sits on top of the permafrost layer, forming lakes and marshes that will turn to ice as soon as temperatures drop below freezing again. Many birds, especially waterfowl, will migrate north to these cool summer wetlands to breed.

One bird that does this is the trumpeter swan, and some fly from wintering grounds as far south as Texas or Mexico. With adults frequently reaching a weight of 30 pounds or 13.6 kg, it is the heaviest living bird native to North America. It is also the largest species of waterfowl in the world, with a wingspan that can exceed 10 feet or 3 meters. Arctic wetlands provide important habitat for the trumpeter swan, a refuge from hunters who decimated populations in Canada and the northern United States in the early 20th century. In 1933, only a few dozen wild trumpeters could be found in these southern areas, and people feared they would become extinct.

Then, a second population of trumpeter swans was discovered in Alaska—thousands of them. Some of Alaska's swans were carefully introduced into areas where trumpeters had been overhunted, allowing populations to recover. Waterfowl are not the only

animals

that live in the tundra. Fish such as salmon and cod migrate to the waterways there each year. The fish, in turn, attract predators such as bears and eagles. Wolverines and foxes also live here, as well as musk oxen and caribou. The caribou or reindeer is one of the great migrators in the world. In winter, they travel south to snowy pine forests.

They cannot survive further north, where the snow is too deep, because they must dig through the snow to eat the moss and lichens underneath. In the spring, they migrate north again to take advantage of the plants growing in the tundra and give birth to their young. Some North American caribou have the longest migration of any land mammal in the world, up to 3,000 miles or 5,000 kilometers. Animals trying to survive in the Arctic need every advantage they can get, and some have found them by changing their appearance. In a land of ice and snow, sometimes it helps to be white.

Some

animals

, such as the snowy owl, maintain white feathers year-round. Others, like the

arctic

fox, wear brown or gray fur in summer and only turn white in winter. Another one that changes color is the white partridge. Covered in brown and white feathers in patches in the summer, they begin to change their plumage as the days get shorter. Both male and female partridges spend the winter with a coat of almost pure white feathers. Once the snow starts to melt, predators can easily spot bright white birds, so they change back. The female first regains her brown camouflage when spring arrives, which offers her some protection from predators while she perches on her eggs.

Males, on the other hand, keep their white feathers for a time to stand out and attract a female, and to show that they are smart and fast enough to avoid being eaten with her showy feathers. The puffin is another

arctic

bird, with a very different camouflage tactic. Puffins are seabirds. They only return to land to reproduce and nest in burrows dug at the top of cliffs. They prefer to breed on islands, where the risk of suffering from terrestrial predators is much lower. Puffins spend months at a time in the open sea, and it is in the sea where their color comes in handy.

They have black feathers on their back and white feathers on their stomach. This color pattern is called countershading and helps them blend in with the dark ocean water when viewed from above, or with the bright sky when viewed from below. Although they can fly, puffins are uncomfortable in the air and typically slosh around on their webbed feet while sitting on the water's surface. To fish, they dive and move by flapping their wings underwater, like penguins do. The rich feeding grounds of the northern oceans attract animals larger than puffins: much larger. Humpback whales travel north in spring to feed on the krill and small fish that abound in the frigid waters.

Although humpbacks are usually solitary, they sometimes form small groups, especially when hunting. A group of humpback whales together can use a special method called bubble netting to catch fish and krill. The whales will surround and encircle a school of fish. Then other whales start blowing a ring of bubbles to catch them. Once the fish are trapped close together, the whales will emerge from beneath them, with their mouths wide open, scooping up large amounts of fish like a net. Their beards allow them to lift the tiny creatures out of the seawater. Humpbacks must eat large amounts of food in the spring and summer months to build up fat reserves.

When the weather turns cold, they will migrate to warmer tropical waters and won't eat again until spring. It is in these warmer waters that they mate and give birth: the newborn babies could not survive the frigid temperatures near the poles. It is important for adults to conduct successful summer hunts in order to survive their annual migration. As we travel further north, we reach areas where the snow and ice never completely melt, in a place called the High Arctic. Even here there is life. Instead of tundra, the high Arctic has polar wastelands. Far fewer plants survive here, mainly mosses and lichens.

As a result, most food chains do not depend on terrestrial plants. Instead, they start at sea. The walrus feels at home on land, in water or on ice. They sleep and rest on beaches or ice platforms. They prefer to live near shallow water. Walruses cannot dive as deeply as their relatives, the harp seals, and must be able to reach the sea floor to find their favorite foods: clams, mollusks and oysters. They may look peculiar, but walruses are well adapted to their icy habitat. Its wrinkled skin is almost 4 inches or 10 cm thick in some places, and the layer of fat beneath it is even thicker: almost 6 inches or 15 cm.

The purpose of both is the same: to allow walruses to stay warm in the freezing Arctic waters. The thick skin and thick blubber contribute to the walrus' enormous size: adult males often weigh more than 2,000 pounds or 900 kg, and some even weigh twice that. However, its most recognizable feature is its fangs. Both males and females grow fangs. Fangs are enlarged teeth that can grow about 3 feet or a meter long. Walruses use their tusks as ice picks to help them get out of the water and onto layers of ice. They also use their fangs to clear breathing holes when ice covers too much of the water surface.

Finally, the tusks provide some defense against the only animals that eat walruses: killer whales and polar bears. Due to their harsh arctic habitat, polar bears rely more on meat than any other bear. They feed mainly on seals, waiting in breathing holes in the ice for them to poke their noses through the surface of the water and then drag them onto the ice. They sometimes catch young belugas, narwhals or walruses this way, but larger prey of this type are much more difficult to handle. Polar bears are the world's largest land predators, but they are also excellent swimmers, sometimes swimming for days at a time to move between hunting areas.

Like the walrus, polar bears are well adapted to their harsh Arctic habitat. The thick white fur serves as camouflage and insulation, and a layer of blubber underneath provides additional warmth. Their paws are extra wide to help them distribute their weight and allow them to walk on snow or thin ice without breaking, and their thick, strong claws help polar bears grasp slippery prey and hold on better to slippery ice. The Arctic is a harsh and threatening land, but it is far from devoid of life. Plants and animals live, grow and flourish in the conditions to which they are adapted.

Many species depend on cold and ice and would not be able to survive if they disappeared. Because the Arctic climate is so hostile to humans, much of it has been left untouched and undeveloped, but we can still upset the delicate balance these creatures depend on. Hunting... pollution... and the collection of natural resources can cause changes that alter the network that supports life in the northernmost reaches of our planet. I hope that today you have learned a lot about the Arctic, the land of the midnight sun. See you soon!