Today it’s my turn to write something in the blog, but I have no idea how to start my post. Well my name is Lena and I’m a student of the Summer School here. It’s too late to write “I’m excited about everything that’s going on here!”, but it’s absolutely true because it’s my first expedition and I’m amazed by the Arctic!
Frankly speaking, I was afraid to take part in the expedition: I had no scientific research yet, I had no knowledge in climatology, oceanology, meteorology and other parts of geography, because for the last 4 years I’ve been studying only physics and math at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. But in my few first days on the Akademic Fedorov, I found that Summer School is something like a friendly, cozy conference! “I believe we will be a big family by the end of the cruise!” said Vladimir (the Director of the Summer School) on the first day. So what is the Summer School? Well every day some of the participants give presentations about sea ice, climate change, modeling, water circulation in the Arctic Ocean, and so on. “Older guys” expand our knowledge in difficult themes through their lectures, and we expand their knowledge by asking them some tricky questions and expressing our opinions about the topics. Those students who don’t have their own research projects yet give less scientific presentations. For example, I gave a presentation about the history of the Northwest Passage discovery and about the 1st and the 2nd Kamchatska expeditions yesterday, and Lindsay, an instructor for the Summer School, gave a presentation about the communication between “crazy scientists” and “ordinary people” at the very beginning of our cruise. And it was interesting, because science should be easily understood, especially in the case of general facts, problems and worries. That’s why all “presenters of the day” try to make their speeches more interactive and clear for everybody. So this school is a real chance to gain new knowledge from the people who do science in their everyday lives! And it’s cool!
Also we have some projects and extra activities to gain experience with fieldwork too. We observe clouds and ice, help in the hydrochemistry lab, and launch Kensuke’s weather balloons. And of course we saw polar bears and got out on the ice ourselves!
So I want to finish my post with this photo. It’s sunset on one of the first days of the cruise.- Elena Khavina
Thank you, Elena, your article is very interesting!
Dear Ludus, thank you from Elena!
Hi again, I’m Chris from Ms. Gilbert’s class at LEOMHS, and I was wondering, how did you manage to prepare your body versus the cold temperatures?
Hey Chris, well I have always loved cold temperatures, so it’s nice for me to be here! But we do need to be careful in the cold though, and wear layers and also sunscreen when we’re outside, since the sun is up all the time. By layers I mean two pairs of pants, the outer layer preferably waterproof, then a shirt under a fleece under a heavy jacket, two pairs of socks, and gloves, hat, and boots (again waterproof). And we/re good to go with that!
Hi everybody in the North !
This beautiful photo/picture, is it a sunset or sunrise ?
Hi Christine! That picture was taken at our port city of Kirkenes, and was a sunset. Once we got much farther north, there technically is no sunset or sunrise, since the sun just stays in the sky all the time. But the Sun does get higher and lower in the sky though. (Mostly it’s been behind clouds though, so it was exciting when we actually saw it on a clearer day.)
Hi, Elena. It’s so cool how you guys have a Summer School on board! Instead of just having to learning in a stuffy classroom you can listen to lots of cool presentations by people with different backgrounds and knowledge, and you can actually go out and learn on the ice (plus see gorgeous sunsets)! So what has been your favorite part of the expedition so far? And is there any knowledge you have gained that you feel you couldn’t have learned better anywhere else?
Hi Audrey, here’s your answer from Elena: There are lots of answers to your questions! The best parts of the expedition have been learning from all the different presentations, and then also getting to go put some of the knowledge into practice with “fieldwork,” which means working with scientists onboard on their ice observations, cloud observations, and work in the hydrochemistry lab. I don’t think that I could have had access to this amount and variety of knowledge anywhere else than in this Summer School and on this ship. I learned so much about the process of how to model the climate, and also about the software that helps us organize and understand sea ice conditions.
I think the way you chose your comments in your post will be an encouragement to other students who would love to do what you are doing. Your photo is absolutely beautiful
Thanks! I’m excited that I could be encouraging students to pursue science and experiences like this, because it’s pretty awesome, and we need more cool young people to get into it!