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Course Instructor: TBD
Dates: TBD
Fees: Tuition and travel to and from Fairbanks, Alaska
Description:
A Field Course in Arctic Science will be offered through Summer Sessions at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This 4-week, 5-credit course will be taught both at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and at the Toolik Field Station in northern Alaska from during the early summer. The course is limited to twelve advanced undergraduate or starting graduate students. The cost of food at Toolik Field Station, all lodging, and travel between the field sites will be covered, and students are expected to pay for their travel to Fairbanks, Alaska. The students will need to bring all-weather gear including winter jackets, rubber boots, and a warm sleeping bag.
The students will learn about the ecology of the arctic and boreal systems through daily lectures delivered by a variety of scientists, active participation in field sampling, and evening discussions of the relevant science literature. The field course will span a broad range of disciplines, including local natural history, fire ecology, snow ecology, plant ecology, invertebrate and mammal biology, carbon budgets, and the implications of a warming climate. The students will gain a firm background in the structure and function of the ecosystems in northern Alaska and become familiar with the tools and techniques useful to ecological field research.
Please contact any of the Principle Investigators or network collaborators to enquire about or to make suggestions regarding opportunities for advanced study and research.
Course Instructor: There will be several instructors for this course
Dates: TBD
Fees: None
Description:
The backbone of the Polaris Project is a field class studying arctic system science at and around the Northeast Science Station in Cherskii Russia (north of the Arctic Circle on the Kolyma River). It is one of the most remote and beautiful places on the planet. See the blog for more information.
During the Polaris Project field course, students and faculty will work together to study the Arctic as a system. Instead of focusing on a single question in a single ecosystem type, we will consider a range of questions across multiple components of the Arctic System including forests, tundra, lakes, rivers, estuaries, and the coastal Arctic Ocean. The unifying scientific theme will be the transport and transformations of carbon and nutrients as they move with water from terrestrial uplands to the Arctic Ocean. We will emphasize the linkages among the different ecosystems, and how processes occurring in one component influence the others.
The inaugural Polaris Project field course was during the summer of 2008. Courses will also take place in 2009 and 2010, with the possibility of continuation if funding is available. During each field course, students and faculty will initially survey the different ecosystem types and get hands-on experience with key tools and approaches used to study them. We will discuss exciting unresolved scientific questions related to each ecosystem type, emphasizing the links between the different components. Students will then design and implement their own research projects and present results to the group at the completion of the course. We anticipate that many students will want to continue or expand their projects once returning to the US: Polaris Project faculty will facilitate these activities during the subsequent academic year, and outstanding students will have the opportunity to present their projects at major scientific conferences.
The inaugural field course in 2008 was a bit different than subsequent field courses: the length of time in Russia was less (~3 weeks instead of ~6 weeks) and there were fewer students (6 instead of 14). Though some of the Polaris Projects faculty have extensive experience in the Arctic, including at Cherskii where the field course was held, others did not. In essence, students and faculty were exploring the Arctic together, learning together, and helping to design the course for subsequent years. An opportunity exists for students to return for a second summer to serve as assistants and to conduct a more intensive research project in 2009.
