Oakland Seventh Graders to Tap Climate Change Institute at UMaine
Contact: Nick Houtman, Dept. of Public Affairs, 207-581-3777
ORONO, Maine — Using laptop computers and the Internet, seventh grade students from SAD 47 in Oakland will study the climate with the help of a University of Maine research expedition in southern Chile. As part of an Earth science project, the students will begin by visiting the Climate Change Institute at UMaine on Feb. 15 to meet with researchers, tour laboratories and see research equipment. The visit is scheduled for 9:45 a.m. in the Sawyer Environmental Research Center.
According to teacher Allyson White, the students will track the expedition’s progress through email and over the Internet. They will conduct experiments paralleling those of the expedition, including setting up their own weather station. Students will create a historical timeline of local climate based in part on interviews with area residents. Efforts will be made to integrate social studies, math, and Spanish.
Paul Mayewski, CCI director and professor in the Dept. of Earth Sciences, will leave Maine with a four-person team on Feb. 20. Their goal is the mountains and coastal waters of southern Chile, part of a region known as Patagonia. Other team members include Andrei Kurbitov, research scientist, and Ph.D. students Eric Osterberg and Dan Dixon. Charley Porter, an adjunct CCI scientist and owner of the Patagonia Research Foundation, will provide a ship to transport the research team.
Researchers will spend most of their time on land, hiking onto mountain glaciers to collect ice cores and snow data. They aim to understand factors that drive the growth and decline of glaciers and how those factors relate to the potential for climate changes in other parts of the world.
Financial support for the expedition is provided by a federal abrupt climate change grant through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A website for the expedition can be found here.