By Sarah Blomberg It's raining, it's pouring, are the EarthWatcher's still snoring? After a day of surreal sites, viewing Beluga Whales, and a late night in town playing an intense game of trivia we awoke to the sight of rain. Due to the extra H2O we did not head directly into the field after our morning briefing. Instead the team was given an amazing workshop by our Senior Fellow, Katrina. She talked all about community impact and challenges in each community to bring awareness to our student's and those in our neighborhoods about climate change. I cannot speak for the others but initiating a discussion of climate change can often begin a heated debate in the already warm metropolitan of Phoenix. However, that is not why I am here, personally. I do not feel that it is my job to change the views of others. That change is one that must occur within one's self. As a teacher and educator it is my job to provide information, data and facts. Those numbers speak for themselves. As a hot button topic climate change can stir the pot to boiling levels if we are not too careful, negating the actual information we are trying to share. Instead, I focus on how I can teach my student's to treat our Earth. At the end of the day we must all coexist here together. We should all take care of our Earth. Regardless of what we believe our Earth provides us with our resources to live each day. Sharing the information of these resources, our impacts and the challenges our environment faces will help an individual view their impact of daily life. As a whole we recognized that one of the many challenges in a community is the need for convenience. Our lives at this time are certainly ones of ease. We do our best to maintain a level of never before utilized comfort. With the creation of apps such as Uber, UberEats, Grocery delivery services and many, many single use plastic products there can be a harm to our environment. Educating communities and schools about these harms is part of our job as EarthWatcher's, teachers and human beings living in this time. As a person who is still learning about these processes each day I am thankful for the enormous amount of education already gained at the CNSC facility. After our workshop the weather had cleared and presented us with time to head out to the wetlands! I was once again on the dip net team. Our job on the dip net team is to actively find samples of the many, many creatures living in the wetlands. After trudging through the wetlands many days earlier and assuming there was not much life in the waters I am still amazed at the amount of life found in each pond. These tiny creatures play a vital role in the wetland systems and their biodiversity. As my students know each creature is part of a larger food chain, depending upon one another to exist. By far my favorite part of dip netting is viewing these critters and then releasing them back to their homes. Some of them did come home with our glorious tech Kabryn and she is taking wonderful care of her "babies". We also had the misfortune to encounter the blood sucking insects of the north. As the weather cleared it was very warm and there were massive amounts of mosquitoes. LeeAnn had warned us that some would be more bothered by the sound of the buzzing and I do believe I fell into that category. I had to sing to keep myself distracted and we can all tell my son that I won his prize for being the worst singer all the way in the arctic! After yesterday's Beluga experience, working with the kindest individuals, watching the Snowy Owl release and helping in imperative research I keep pinching myself to make sure all of this is real. I excitedly look forward to tomorrow's research and the impact our data will have on our Earth. -Sarah Blomberg EarthWatch Team 2
0 Comments
By Tammy Drazkowski It has been a week of wonders - one of discovering a new land and new passions within ourselves. We have done much learning peppered with some work. And as it is in most cases, the work makes you appreciate the play even more.
Today, day 5 was our "play day" here at the Arctic's edge. We started out with a restful morning. A sleep-in for some, shopping, writing or reading for others - definitely free time for all. It was a time to reflect on all we have done and learned so far- to look at pictures, to deepen friendships, to spend quiet time with ourselves and to anticipate the afternoons events. Finally, the morning was over and another delicious lunch finished. The nine of us "fellows" and two research assistants (Alex and Kaybryn) headed into the booming metropolis of Churchill (population about 500). Along the way we stopped to look at some of the local sites including the Polar bear holding facility, also know as polar bear jail - a place where the furry frequent visitors go to spend some time before being escorted out of town. We saw some awesome murals painted throughout the town, including one on the side of "miss piggy", a crashed airplane. Then we payed a visit to Fort Churchill and Cape Merry before having an hour in town to get a warm coffee and visit some shops. At 4:45 it was time to visit the Belugas with Sea North Tours. After donning extra clothes and life vests, the eleven of us boarded a zodiac boat with our guide Brook. We could see a couple other boats and lots of white figures in the distance as we started off. The next couple hours were a bit surreal. As we took photos and videos and squealed with delight, I think deep down we all knew that the pictures would never be able to truly capture the feelings of awe we experienced as we watched these incredible white whales swim, feed and play all around us. It is definitely one of the memories embedded in each of us that we will always cherish along with many others up here. The end of our day was certainly not a let down as we gathered at the Tundra restaurant for dinner and trivia night. Our two American teams did quite well against the locals seeing as Canada was a theme in a couple of the categories. After another wonderful day, we got back into the van, feeling even more like a family with shared memories and headed "home". "The Edge of the Arctic" To the edge of the Arctic where the ice -sheets flow where the terns chase owls and the north winds blow To the edge of the Arctic where the Polar bears swim and the northern lights dance when the stars go dim To the edge of the Arctic where Belugas play where the tundra meets water and the reindeer moss lay To the edge of the Arctic where the ghost fox roam We have gathered together and found a new home Tammy Drazkowski By Kadeine Peterson The thing I love most about taxonomic naming is its literal nature. For example, the Delphinapeterus leucas translates from Greek to mean “white dolphin without fin”, a perfect description of the beluga whale. Day four of our Earthwatch program began with an informative lecture on these charismatic toothed-cetaceans. Emma, an undergraduate student in marine biology, spoke about the research being done on particularly, the ~50,000 strong Western Hudson Bay population of belugas, with large contributions from the citizen science project called Beluga Bits. The goal of this research is to elucidate the natural history of the Hudson Bay pod, which includes information regarding age, sex and group size. Beluga Bits is of particular importance because a huge barrier to beluga research is the difficulty of identifying individuals using known techniques applied to other whales. The patterning and scars evident on more distinctly colored cetaceans are similar to fingerprints on humans, in that no two whales will have exactly the same combination of markers. Belugas lack of a dorsal fin combined with their unique white coloration and molting behavior, renders their “fingerprinting” difficult. This is where citizen science comes into play. People from across the globe are able to access the live feed of belugas in the Churchill River estuary from July to August and snap pictures of the curious whales as they swim into frame. After a quick and basic anatomy lesson on belugas, they are able to sort the images into stacks based on number of individuals, age, distinct markings and the “bits” mentioned in the project name. To me, female beluga genitalia resemble the Greek letter Psi(ψ) and male genitalia is a hyphen(-). I think we were all excited at the prospect of using this tool in our classrooms as a way to get our students involved in citizen science as well as contribute to the growing pool of knowledge regarding these magnificent whales.
After the morning lecture, we had a change of plans and headed off to see a large patch of sea ice that had come ashore the day before. As we all bundled up into the van to drive to our destination, the excitement was audibly tangible; but then again, I am not sure that we haven’t had this level of enthusiasm since we arrived in Churchill only three days ago. This is where I wish I had more vocabulary to describe the experience of walking on sea ice. All I can come up with is that this has got to be one of the coolest (pun intended) things I have ever done. Guess what? Ice IS actually that blue up close. We briefly ventured into town for a “snack and beverage” run, before returning to CNSC in preparation for our first afternoon collecting samples in wetlands. LeeAnn explained to us the importance of this multi-year research in determining the environmental impacts of climate change on the Hudson Bay area. We were split into four teams with tasks that will rotate over four days. These teams were environmental/water quality, trap collecting, dip net sampling, and the physical nature of the pond. LeeAnn took the time to explain to us our jobs, the equipment needed and the expectations for collecting good and useful data. I think this is the moment it became clear to us that we were here to DO ACTUAL RESEARCH. *Happy Dance* For many of us on this expedition, our time in Churchill will mark the first time that we can say that yes, we do have field research and lab experience and what a wonderful thing to be able to bring home to our students. We ended the day with an informative session on polar bears, Ursus maritimus (Latin for maritime bear because...duh), given by LeeAnn. Though I loved learning about these hypercarniverous bears, in particular the sows’ ability to undergo delayed implantation of embryos, I quickly got an appreciation for just how powerful and potentially dangerous they could be. They are after all, the largest non-aquatic predator. I think I left that session with a greater appreciation for our dedicated bear guards and LeeAnn’s 30 years of living/working in this environment. Today was packed to the core with experiences and as I keep saying to my husband in our nightly talks from 1500 miles apart, “...and it’s only day 4!” By Erin Cymrot Day three continued our Wood Frog work with Tom, a master’s student from Appalachian State. Yesterday’s successes in using the GPS has made us Tom’s new best friends and we got to continue marking locations at a site aptly named Strange and his favorite site, called Lindy. It was easy to see why Lindy makes the top of Tom’s list, the landscape here is vast and open, and really it’s clear we are just visitors here. I don’t want to speak for everyone, but as someone who’s lived her whole life in urban settings, this is a new experience for me. I’m used to green spaces being designed and controlled by humans, where we are the ones allowing nature to accompany our lives, rather than the other way around. Here, the landscape is boss, and humans are here to study and enjoy, but not to control. I can see why the scientists who live and work at CNSC fall in love.
We walked through a bit of boreal forest on our way to the wetland area. It was interesting to see the changes in ground cover, from hard packed and sandy with a beautiful covering of moss and vegetation, to the bouncy squish of the hummocks, and finally the soft, sinking, wet mud of the wetland itself. The trip through the boreal forest also gave our Principal Investigator, LeeAnn a chance to show us some of the many types of berries that grow up here, including cranberries, blueberries, cloudberries, and many others. And much like teachers always have a side gig, LeeAnn does too, making jams and jellies from the berries! When we completed our work with Tom, we had the opportunity to hear a lecture from Owen, a research technician, here at the CNSC. He studies tree islands and worked closely with an Earthwatch team that came earlier in the summer. It was really fascinating to hear and see what the other Earthwatch teams worked on and learn more about the treeline and tree islands. Owen’s work focuses on understanding the conditions that allow tree islands to form, and the implications and impacts of their growth here in the tundra. After another lovely dinner, we had a chance to do our first “teacher workshop” led by our Lead Fellow, Katrina. We learned about the concept of Permaculture, which is a way of thinking about the world that moves beyond sustainability and into resilience. There are three principals: earth care, people care, and fair share. How can this set of tools help us change the way we think about, and operate in, the world around us? How will we will push our students and our communities into facing environmental challenges and move towards positive changes? This is our Earthwatch mission. By Arjun CollinsPlains, planes, trains and Introduction Day behind us, our Team (2) of EarthWatchers began Day 2 learning about the ways in which we’ll interact with the landscape before us. The Edge of the Arctic—as described in our Expedition Briefing— is both a boreal and subarctic zone, facilitating a complex interaction between organisms despite the extreme nature of its ecosystems.
By Katrina RoddenberryFor several of us, our rendezvous day began bright and early at the Winnipeg airport. After several delays to our flight, six Earthwatchers hopped aboard our aircraft anxious to make it to our final destination and rendezvous point, Churchill, Manitoba.
We took a quick stop in Gillam where many of us experienced our first landing on a dirt/gravel runway! After refueling the aircraft, we were on our way to the Churchill airport. We were all very excited to meet the Principal Investigator for our expedition, Dr. LeeAnn Fishback who graciously picked us up from the airport and transported us all safely to the Churchill Northern Studies Centre (CNSC), our final destination. We enjoyed a tour of the CNSC where we met two other team members who have traveled from Winnipeg to Churchill by train. We all got settled into our rooms before enjoying an amazing dinner in the dining hall and a lively overview of our upcoming experience and background information on the studies being conducted at CNSC. We have the good fortune to be spending the next ten days at this unique and special place. |
Carla Yawney4th Grade Teacher Deb BerlinMiddle School Science Teacher Melinda Lang2nd Grade Teacher Sarah Blomberg7-12 Science Teacher Tammy DrazkowskiMiddle School Science Teacher Kadeine PetersonHigh School Biology Teacher Erin Cymrot5th Grade Math and Science Teacher Arjun CollinsHigh School Biology and AP Environmental Science Teacher Katrina RoddenberryEarthwatch Senior Fellow and Middle School Science Teacher ArchivesCategories |