Park’s ISAMR Program Returns to Manitoba for Annual Climate Change Research Trip
Members of the International Student-led Arctic Monitoring and Research (ISAMR) program took their annual trip to Northern Canada this summer to conduct permafrost research and study its relationship to climate change in Manitoba’s Wapusk National Park. This year, eight Park Upper School students and two faculty members, along with two students from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, met with 10 Junior Canadian Rangers (JCRs) from Churchill and Lynn Lake, Manitoba to work and travel together.
The ISAMR program is a coalition of students, teachers, and professional researchers working on a projected 30-year study of the subarctic climate. The unique extracurricular program is an opportunity for students to travel annually to the edge of the Arctic Circle to conduct original scientific research.
This year’s trip consisted of eight days at a camp called Camp Nanuq on the outskirts of Churchill, followed by six days in Wapusk National Park at a research station called Nester 1. In both locations, students collected data on permafrost active layer thickness (the depth of soil that thaws each summer, used as a proxy for permafrost depth), fox dens, and plant cover, along with other aspects of different Arctic habitats. Back at Park, students will spend the school year analyzing the data they collected, continuing the work they began in Canada, and building on the dataset that ISAMR has been collecting since 2008.
Park senior Madeleine M. ’27 shared that “the ISAMR trip was life-changing. It was the first time I have ever been on a piece of land that was so untouched. We could walk forever at Wapusk National Park and we wouldn’t see anything other than nature and wildlife. As someone from Baltimore City, everything around me at home is man-made, so it was really eye opening to see that untouched land is still alive and well.”
The impact of this trip goes beyond just the important scientific research. Madeleine said, “this trip not only gave me an opportunity to learn about the land, but I also learned about the people in Canada. We met 10 other kids from Lynn Lake and Churchill who were Junior Rangers. They have a very different life than us and I loved learning about their life and spending so much time with them. We learned about the culture around Churchill, especially the Indigenous groups that went through so much injustice in the past. We learned about their painful experiences of relocation and reconciliation of the life they once had. We also learned how to make bannock, which was a yummy fried bread!”
Read more about ISAMR here.
