Field Notes
During, before, and after the field course, Polaris students and faculty share their thoughts through journal entries.
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Greetings from Alaska
Greetings from the Alaskan tundra! The St. Olaf Crew (minus Seth, plus another Ole, Serina Robinson) has had the privilege to start our arctic research experience early at Sue Natali’s field site in Healy, Alaska.
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Arctic Science in High School Environmental Science Classrooms
This spring Seth Spawn and I, and another St. Olaf student named Kirsten Maier, created a partnership with two environmental science high school teachers at Harding High School in St. Paul. Our objectives were to bring Arctic science into the classroom and use it as a tool to teach about
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Polaris 2013 Terrestrial Satellite group
A major goal this year on the terrestrial side of things is to quantify all things carbon (and more!) for the watershed of a small stream known as Y4, located a short walk from the Northeast Science Station.
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The Polaris Project Reunites at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting, 2012
This December several Polaris Project undergraduate students presented their research at the American Geophysical fall meeting, one of the largest gatherings of Earth scientists.
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Reflection
Walking on to Western Washington University's campus five years ago, I was sure that I was going to be a business major.
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Travel Update!
After seemingly days of travel and delays, we seem to be making headway. The crew have all made Moscow safely and are now slowly saying their long goodbyes before jumping on to different flights to the US.
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Last Minute Tree Sampling
Over the last two days, many of us accompanied the researchers out to collect any nonpermanent sampling equipment, place long-term equipment to gather data over the next year until the Polaris Project returns, and take any final samples.
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Why Do I Do This?
There are many easier things to do in life than to lead a group of 33 people to the Siberian Arctic for a month-long expedition. So why do I do it?
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Parting Shots – A Cold, Windy, Snowy Day
It is never far from winter here, but it is always beautiful. Although everyone is working hard to cleanup in preparation of tomorrow’s departure, it is with mixed emotions that we will leave.
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Polaris Project Student Research – Seth Spawn (St. Olaf College)
This morning, I went out with Seth and Dr. Karen Frey of Clark University to take the last few samples of Seth’s experiment and to collect an ingenious sampling platform of Seth’s creation that held bags of water at various depths for a week so the photodegradation at each level
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Student Research – Eric Taber (Colgate College) and Sam Berman (Clark University)
To me as a teacher, one of the most rewarding aspects of the Polaris Program is watching mentoring relationships develop between students and researchers from the same university. Taking education out of the confines of the university and into the field, raises the level of thinking and problem solving beyond
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5th Annual Polaris Project Symposium.
Last evening, the undergraduate and graduate students of the Polaris Project presented the results of their research at the 5th Annual Polaris Project Symposium. To do this, we transformed the dining hall of Orbita into a conference center. Each of these 15 students presented their research for 10 minutes, followed
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Student Research – Brandi Jo Petronio and Peter Ganzlin (University of Florida)
Peter and Brandi Jo tell me that in order to understand the value of their research it is important to know that the excellent insulating properties of the thick moss layers have a large impact on how deeply the permafrost soils thaw in the summer months, and consequently, how much
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What’s an Allometrist?
In ecology, a fundamental objective is taking our measurements, observations, and analyses from a manageable sampling and scaling these up to assess their implications on a large landscape. While remote sensing and modeling are a key part of ecological research, having reliable data from the field to 'ground truth' these
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North to the Windy Tundra
For our final large group adventure, we headed north at about 10 p.m. on Wednesday, June 18, our Barge being pushed by a tugboat in a similar fashion to our trip to Duvannyi Yar. This time, our goal was to visit and take samples from the tundra ecosystem and up
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