WOODS HOLE, MA--Thanks to MBL Ecosystems Center scientist Max Holmes and Vermont schoolteacher Amy Clapp, a whole new crop of scientists is budding in Salisbury, Vermont. Holmes and Clapp are leaving for Siberia on May 21 on a double-edged mission: to conduct two weeks of important MBL climate-related research on the Lena River and to share their scientific adventures with Clapp's fourth, fifth, and sixth graders and others at Vermont's Salisbury Community School and beyond.

The collaboration is courtesy of Teachers & Researchers Exploring & Collaborating (TREC), an Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS)-operated outreach program that pairs science teachers and cutting-edge polar researchers to bring science to life for schoolchildren. With funding from the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Office of Polar Programs, TREC sends teachers on Arctic research trips and provides students with virtual scientific experiences via classroom activities, Internet-based campfire chats, on-line journals and photo albums, message boards, and live real-time "webinars."

Holmes, a Principal Investigator on The Ecosystems Center's Pan-Artic River Transport of Nutrients, Organic Matter, and Suspended Sediments (PARTNERS) project, discovered TREC at a scientific conference last fall. He says he recognized the value of participating in the program and submitted a proposal for a teacher to accompany him and six other American and Russian scientists on a two-week PARTNERS research trip to gather water, sediment, and other samples from the Lena River during the peak flow season on the river.

Soon TREC matched up Holmes and Clapp, and the PARTNERS project became an educational outreach vehicle. Funded by NSF's Arctic Systems Program, PARTNERS is a comprehensive international effort among American, Russian, and Canadian scientists to study the flow of freshwater runoff from six major Arctic rivers (including the Lena) into the Arctic O
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Contact: Gina Hebert
ghebert@mbl.edu
508-289-7725
Marine Biological Laboratory
19-May-2004

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