Education Outreach in Village Schools during the SnowSTAR 2007 Alaska-Canada Barren Lands Traverse.

In spring 2007, the IPY expedition, SnowSTAR-2007, traveled 4200 kilometers by snow machine across much of Alaska and Northern Canada. The primary objectives of the trip were education outreach, and collaborative US/Canadian field measurements of the snow along the route. The route started in Fairbanks, Alaska and ended in Baker Lake, Nunavut, Canada near Hudson passing through 11 communities. The primary outreach efforts during the expedition were the expedition website (http://www.barrenlands.org ) and in school presentations and interactive science demonstrations at most of the communities we visited. The website, used by school children in over 60 classrooms, and the the general public, was updated daily from the field. We gave presentations (classrooms and all-school assemblies), in nine communities. In the schools we demonstrated the equipment we use in the field, as well as two fun demonstrations of physical principles (acoustic resonance in a plastic sewer pipe and eddy current forces on a magnet falling through a copper water pipe). The community outreach was highly successful because we arrived in each community in a novel manner, and we were there during the winter when these communities are rarely visited by scientists.