Programs
The newest exhibit in the CU Museum of Natural History鈥檚 BioLounge takes a deep dive into the Earth鈥檚 southernmost continent, beyond the ice, to the ancient Dry Valleys鈥攚here CU conducts world-class research. Discover the tiny lifeforms that exist in the harsh environment at the end of the world; learn what it is like to live as scientist where no rain has fallen in over 2 million years; get to the core of how this icy place plays a central role in weather and climate all over the planet!
Since it is impossible to bring classrooms to Antarctica we bring Antarctic scientists into the classroom using Skype. Students are able to send some questions ahead of time and ask questions in real time with the scientists of the LTER. In the 18-19 season, we Skyped with over 24 school groups from across the country and gave over 700 students a window into what it was like to live and work in Antarctica. We even had a scientist answering questions from a classroom in Utah while diving under the lake ice in the dry valleys. If you would like to have Antarctica scientists virtually visit your classroom, please contact Alex Rose at alexandra.rose@colorado.edu
Our outreach team at 兔子先生传媒文化作品 is heavily involved in the Teen Science Cafe Network and has been hosting successful Teen Science Cafes in the Denver metro area for several years. During the 18-19 season we brought our Antarctic Scientists into the Teen Cafe in Boulder. Students in Boulder were able to chat in real time with scientists currently working in McMurdo. During the pandemic, we also started a Virtual Science Cafe featuring LTER scientists. This series was kicked off with Dr. Byron Adams giving a talk about the 鈥淐harismatic Megafauna of Continental Antarctica鈥 (microscopic tardigrades and such).
There are many different people that find themselves working in Antarctica. The obvious ones are the scientists that we are profiling here. However, you may not realize that it takes a wide variety of people to make Antarctic research possible. There are cooks, firefighters, plumbers, janitors, water treatment managers, welders, and many others that find themselves working in Antarctica. These people are rarely aware of the specific research they are supporting. As a form of outreach (which we called in-reach) we reached out to a specific group and went to their workstation to talk not only about the research we do but to find out what brought them to Antarctica. 鈥淲hile we all know that we are here to support science, 鈥渟cience鈥 can often seem like a far off, untouchable entity that we hear about but don鈥檛 get to interact with a lot. Today we got to see the personal side of the science that we support and I know everyone on my team really enjoyed the opportunity.鈥 - Jessica Palen, Lodging Supervisor
The Polar Literacy (PL) project is creating replicable ways of bringing polar education to informal learning environments, extending our understanding of how polar education initiatives can be delivered to youth, and designing a professional development model to improve the capacity for Polar Region researchers to craft meaningful broader impacts. Polar scientists participate in professional development (PD) focused on effective science communication skills and work collaboratively with informal educators to design effective after-school club programs to underserved and underrepresented youth across four regional nodes (OH, NJ, PA, and CO). The focal point of the project is developing learning environments where youth grapple with real-world polar data, engage in conversation with polar scientists, and reflect on connections between the polar regions and local natural systems. Ultimately, the PL project will deliver a transferrable model for effective informal STEM learning that builds public engagement with polar science.
Kevin Dickerson teaches Biology and Earth Science at American Fork Junior High School in American Fork, Utah. He spent a year learning about MCM LTER science with PI Byron Adams's lab at Brigham Young University. During his deployment in 2019 Kevin was a "wormhearder" and worked studying the soils of the Dry Valleys. He continues to infuse his teaching with his experiences from the Dry Valleys, hosts MCM LTER scientists in his classrom regularly, and has helped his students establish their own LTER site at a nearby canyon.
The MCM LTER has been fortunate to have had several artists spend time in the field through the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. This NSF supported program provides opportunities for scholars in the humanities (painting, photography, writing, history, and other liberal arts) to work in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. The artists who have worked with MCM have their work and experiences cataloged through the Antarctic Artists and Writers Collective. Helen Glazer, a photographer and sculpter, was deployed with our team in 2015. She photographed ice and geological formations for eventual production as photographic prints and sculpture which have been displayed nationwide.
In 2019 we started what we'd hoped would be an ongoing outreach event in partnership with the CU Museum of Natural History: Antarctic Family Day. Researchers and graduate students from MCM LTER, as well as staff from the USAP and other researchers at CU who work in Antarctica offered a variety of interactive demonstrations and hand-on experiences for families during a day-long event. Over 200 members of the public attended. We hope to reprise this as an annual event as soon as possible.
Once home from the ice, our scientists across the project regularly give classroom presentations about Antarctica, the history of science on the continent, and specific research topics such as glaciology and soil ecosystems. We reach several hundred K-12 students across the country every year.