IPY: Current Climate changes over Eastern Siberia and Interior Alaska and their Impact on Permafrost Landscapes, Ecosystem Dynamics, and Hydrological Regime

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This project is establishing long-term permafrost monitoring sites adjacent to schools in the circumpolar permafrost region and providing Native Alaskan students with field experiences and classrooms lessons on permafrost. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report renewed concerns that enhanced thawing or degradation of permafrost is having a major impact on infrastructures, coastal processes, and Arctic communities. Most remote villages depend on a subsistence lifestyle, and changing climate and permafrost conditions directly affect Native communities. To better understand these changes, the project is drilling boreholes at 50 Alaskan village schools and installing data loggers with temperature sensors that measure hourly air and permafrost temperatures. Teachers at grade levels ranging from elementary to high school are helping their students download and analyze the data in science classes. To support classroom instruction, the project is developing Permafrost/Remote Sensing Classroom Lesson units and a Permafrost/Remote Sensing module to be made widely available on DVD. These activities enable students to collaborate and communicate new ideas, as well as to develop critical thinking skills that transcend the boundaries of the science classroom. Using the Internet, teachers and students can also compare their data with data from other monitoring schools. The scientific information gathered from these stations is also being shared with researchers and the general public via an online permafrost database. The research addresses three of the six International Polar Year themes: The Current State of the Polar Environment, Change in the Polar Environment, and Human Societies in Polar Regions. Through integration of research and education, the project is providing high resolution data on the spatial distribution of the thermal state of permafrost in Alaska, improving the general knowledge of Earth's climatic patterns, bringing science to remote Alaskan villages that tend to have limited exposure to science, and providing an opportunity for younger generations to take part in understanding Earth's climatic and hydrologic systems.