The Institute will include teacher training associated with the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) IPY project “Seasons & Biomes” led by Dr. Elena Sparrow, which is part of the UArctic IPY Higher Education and Outreach project cluster.
The Summer Institute has been arranged as part of the International Polar Year (IPY) and the Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEEPSI) education/outreach activities. It will provide a unique opportunity for participants to learn about the climate of Northern Eurasia from leading scientists and educators, in a wide spectrum of polar and Earth system science disciplines including meteorology, biology, chemistry, and earth system modeling. It will also allow them to witness the magic of exploration as they observe and participate in research activities under the guidance of experienced scientists.
Institute participants will include graduate students/early career scientists from six different countries as well as K-12 teachers from Russia. The two groups will join together for several workshop sessions and for the field work components of the Institute. The field work will focus on land–atmosphere interactions in the boreal forest zone, and several field trips in and outside the Forest Reserve are planned to highlight various aspects of studies in this field.
The K-12 teachers will also be instructed in existing GLOBE protocols as well as new protocols created specifically for the Seasons & Biomes project to study interannual variability of seasons in their own biomes. These teachers will then in turn engage their students in earth system science research as a way of involving them in the IPY.
Several institutions and organizations have been involved in planning the Institute, among them the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Central Biosphere Forest Reserve, the A.N. Severtsov Institute for Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, GLOBE (Russia), and the Southern Federal University, Russia.
Support for the Institute is provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF), USA; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USA; the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russia; GLOBE, USA; European Environment Agency; the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan; University of Maryland, USA; “Transparent World,” Moscow, Russia; University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA; the University of the Arctic; and the International Polar Year.