Upper School Students Present at Annual ArcticNet Scientific Meeting in Halifax
Two Park students in the International Student-led Arctic Monitoring and Research (ISAMR) program traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in December to attend the 15th Annual ArcticNet Scientific Meeting. Funded by the Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada, ArcticNet brings together scientists and managers in the natural, human health, and social sciences with their partners in Inuit organizations, northern communities, government, and industry to help Canadians face the impacts and opportunities of climate change and modernization in the Arctic.
Freshman Maya Moorthy and junior Sam Ferraro attended the conference this year with ISAMR faculty advisor and Upper School science teacher Carla Guarraia. Maya and Sam went to a variety of topical sessions, met and networked with scientists, and presented their poster on microbiome communities in four Arctic habitats at two ‘Poster Sessions.’ “The work that we brought to Halifax was just our preliminary findings,” Sam said. “We plan to continue monitoring the same areas over a greater span of time and to do a more in depth analysis of those areas and their microbiomes.”
Students in the ISAMR program work to monitor climate change in the subarctic region through generating long term research projects. Members of the group travel to the Arctic twice a year – October and August – to conduct original, scientific research.
“We did our best to take advantage of the access we had to the large group of experts that were at the conference,” Sam said. “I felt very fortunate to be able to go and present this work and thought that it was a truly incredible experience. I learned a lot about the changing Arctic environment as a whole, our topic (the changing microbiome of the Arctic), and the process of making and presenting a poster.”