Education and Outreach

Permafrost Lesson Plans, Experiments, and Learning Activities:

• A protocol for K12 school-based frost tube activities and creating a community-based permafrost monitoring network.  Frost tubes can be installed in any area which experiences annual thawing or freezing of the soil.  Teachers from anywhere can access data from participating schools and teachers (in all frost-tube countries) can enter their frost tube data to the international Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) database.  This video talks to a few students who are participating.
• Alaska’s Cold Desert – Jeff Brune’s article from Science and Children (1996) features background material and several classroom activities for younger students on permafrost and Arctic animals.  There are multi-page posters in the article with activities throughout.  
• EU INTERACT lesson on permafrost – targeted to students 13 to 19 yrs of age.  Toolkit includes ppt, worksheets, video links, etc. 
• Undercover Eis Agenten (UnderCover Ice Agent) – German-Canadian collaboration in which high school students are flying drones near their community to map permafrost. There are several tutorials to help students recognize permafrost features. There is also an English-language version too. 
• The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) and USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) lessons on soils, including one on permafrost 
• Pipeline to Environmental Awareness: In a simulated pipeline construction project, students apply physics, mathematics, and environmental biology– Caton et al.’s article from The Science Teacher (1998) on how to have students build miniature oil wells (or use ones already constructed), and calculate the forces to move fluids at different temperatures, leading to a discussion of a points system to compare the impacts of oil development on ecosystems and people through a simulated landscape
• Measuring CO₂: Students learn firsthand how thawing permafrost adds to global warming – in Taterka and Cory’s article from The Science Teacher (2016), student’s use CO₂ sensors to measure decomposition inside plastic containers and either frozen or live plant materials, in the classroom or outside 
• Modeling the Melting of Permafrost – Mattox and Duda’s article from The Science Teacher (2022) on how to build a model of layered permafrost in an aquarium with a sun lamp and use 10 small dataloggers to monitor the temperatures and also graph the temperature data through time at different depths.  Access through the National Science Teachers Association or a Library may be necessary for a free download

Permafrost Books and Articles:

• EU’s Edu-Arctic website has lesson plans and materials.  Also check out their PolarPedia dictionary with terms in more than a dozen languages, and their Games and Quizzes section in more than 6 languages.
• EU’s INTERACT consortium has several education toolkits and a YouTube channel
• UK’s Wicked Weather Watch has a variety of materials and multi-school learning opportunities – this site does require registration to access them
• The PolarTrec program paired educators with researchers in the field in the Arctic and Antarctic for over 20 years.  This site features blogs from their journeys and educational materials they developed to share.  Searching “permafrost” turns up dozens of items
• The IUGS Commission on Geoscience Education (COGE) has general resources for a range of ages – at the bottom there are resources in Spanish, Italian, French, and German
• The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has lots of wildlife-centered resources, scroll for coloring pages, games, interactive activities, and more for a range of ages

Arctic Educational Materials:

• A new international, multi-language Glossary of Permafrost terms is due to be released in summer 2024, updating previous versions from the 1970s, 1990s, and early 2000s
• The free book Permafrost in Our Time, available in English and Russian (“Мерзлотав наше время”) by Kenji Yoshikawa
• The free pdf book “Вечная мерзлота и культура” (Permafrost and Culture: Global Warming and the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) of the Russian Federation) edited by Hiroki Takakura et al. is available only in Russian
• Drunken Forests: Teaching about permafrost thaw through personal experience – an article reflecting on his personal experience with permafrost by Brandon Lucas (one of a series of Arctic Institute articles on Permafrost from 2021)
• A Connected Climate Change Learning Through Citizen Science: An Assessment of Priorities and Needs of Formal and Informal Educators and Community Members in Alaska –-article in Connected Science Learning (2018) by Spellman et al., assessing the effectiveness of GLOBE protocols (including frost-tubes) to study local climate change

Cartoons, Virtual Reality, and Board Games (for all ages!):

• “A Frozen-Ground Cartoon” – Downloadable comic book in 10 languages by artists Heta Nääs and Noémie Ross, as well as games and AR material from Permafrost on All Channels
• “Pasta or Disaster?” A Data Comics for Climate Change cartoon follows the story of a family hike in Glacier National Park in the Rocky mountains which explains the impacts of permafrost degradation there and across the Arctic
• A virtual tour of the US CRREL’s Permafrost Tunnel in Fairbanks developed by Ohio State Univerisity’s Byrd Polar Center.  An hour long video of a tour in March 2023 is available too.
• A role-playing board game on Arctic resources was developed by JAMSTEC, Hokkaido University, and several other partners.  It is available in Japanese, with an English-language version in development.  Testing with students from ages 6 to 18 has gone well!

Videos (some video links may only play in some countries):

• The EU’s INTERACT consortium has a YouTube Channel which has a variety of videos on permafrost
• Цэвдэг гэсэж байна! (3 min) – It’s thawing! video in Mongolian by Adiya Saruulzaya, Mongolian Academy of Sciences  
• “What does permafrost smell like?” (3 min) – PolarTrec teacher David Walker interviews a variety of researchers at Toolik Field Station about what permafrost smells like
• “The permafrost twisted house” (3 min) – Interview with permafrost scientist Vladimir Romanovsky and the owner of a home in Fairbanks, Alaska, which has sunk because of permafrost.  The new houses foundation was built to resist subsidence 
• Several time-lapse and rap(!) videos (3 to 5 min) of and about frozen debris lobes (and some articles about what they are and why a highway in Alaska had to be rerouted around one) are available from researchers at the University of Alaska – Fairbanks
•  “The Big Thaw: What happens when the Arctic permafrost thaws?”  (6 min) – Ted-Ed Video discusses animals and plants preserved in permafrost by Brendan Rogers & Jessica Howard, Woodwell Climate Research Center 
• Tunnel Man – follow the musical adventures of a permafrost superhero who emerged from the CRREL permafrost tunnel.  Episode 1 is on the permafrost tunnel, Episode 2 on meat cellars, Episode 3 on frost tubes (also in Russian), Episode 4 on landscape changes (geomorphology), Episode 5 on permafrost history, and for fun Tunnel Man dancing Gangham style to advertise summer field courses for college students
• “What happens with the Permafrost thaws?” (8 min) – Royal Society video from 2024 has interviews with several researchers and indigenous people in Svalbard and Canada on what permafrost is and why it’s important to global carbon cycles, thermokarst, and impacts to infrastructure and livelihoods
• “Permafrost – What is it?” (13 min) – Alfred Wegener Institut’s 2016 animated video on what permafrost is, where it is found, what happens when it thaws (including feedbacks of gasses and increased vegetation growth), and ongoing research into methane craters and by international collaborations; Russian and German language versions and additional videos are available.
•  “Is Permafrost the Climate Tipping Point of No Return?” (12 min) – PBS Terra Weathered’s host Maiya May discusses permafrost as one potential hazard on this series exploring various natural disasters
• “After 15,000 years, it’s waking up” (17 min) – Physics Girl visits the US CRREL’s permafrost tunnel in Fairbanks in 2022 with Amanda Barker, discussing what permafrost is, what it smells like (what causes the smell), the mammoth and other things preserved there, risks of thawing permafrost to infrastructure and the global carbon cycle, Amanda’s own research, and more
• PBS NOVA video “Arctic Sinkholes” (53 min) – explores the massive methane explosions recently observed in northern Siberia
• “Alaska’s permafrost in a warming Arctic” (60 min) – US National Science Foundation live video streamed in 2023 from the Toolik Field Station in Alaska with teachers talking with researchers about the impact of permafrost on the water cycle

Elementary school of Logarithm, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (22 November 2023)

College and Beyond:

• For the public, professionals, and engineers, the Canadian-Norwegian Canoes project developed a curriculum of 25 short videos on a range of permafrost topics to refresh awareness of key concepts
• The University of Arctic (UArctic) consortium of Arctic educational institutions and other key partners across the northern regions lists both field and traditional courses available under the Thematic Network on Permafrost.  The north2north program also aids individual undergraduate and graduate students attending other UArctic institutions as part of their college programs.  Check regularly for new opportunities
• PermaIntern – international network which facilitates students connecting to companies needing interns with university supervisors providing educational resources
• EduPermaGR – new UArctic networking program in Greenland funded summer 2024
• SEDNA – new UArctic networking program in Canada funded summer 2024
• The very active Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN) provides a wealth of information, support, and opportunities to students and recent graduates 

Education & Outreach Committee: 

The IPA Education and Outreach Standing Committee promotes permafrost education and outreach to all generations across the globe.  We welcome any comments, questions, and suggestions, sent to any member of the Education and Outreach Standing Committee, or co-chairs Anna (anna.klene@gmail.com) and Ylva (ylva.sjoberg@iumu.se). 

The Standing Committee shall…

• make recommendations to the permafrost community and the wider public to better publicize media and outreach products on permafrost

The Standing Committee should…

• Advise the Executive Committee on Education and Outreach activities as well as coordinate and initiate Education and Outreach activities for the International Permafrost Association in partnership with the IPA Secretariat and/or other organizations.
• Help the Executive Committee to develop a strong corporate identity for the IPA, including graphics, web instruments, and presentations.
• Ensure the presence and involvement of young researchers and educators in IPA activities.
• Seek to develop educational products for non-specialist audiences, including youth, teachers, journalists or policy-makers.
• Help to maintain a database of subject matter experts (SMEs)
• Support the development and maintenance of the International University Courses on Permafrost database
• Seek to develop the place of permafrost in education curricula. It should do so by developing course syllabi, background literature suggestions, course presentation material, but also by collaborating with the relevant stakeholders on the development of permafrost courses.
• Foster the development of field courses and summer schools on permafrost-related topics
• Try to articulate the IPA’s education and outreach activities in broader education frameworks
• Support PYRN and ensure that its activities are known in the permafrost community and beyond (e.g. APECS)

Photos: Elementary school of Logarithm, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (22 November 2023)