During UAF’s spring break we (Martin Jeffries and Kim Morris) completed a 4-day, 1,050 mile road trip to Seward, with stops at Healy and Wasilla, to visit ALISON teachers and students. Seward was our main destination because we didn’t visit Marc Swanson and his 6th grade students in autumn 2003 to help set up their ALISON study site. They did that on their own and so we owed them a visit to talk about snow and lake ice, and work with them at their study site.

We couldn’t have chosen a better time to make such a long trip. The roads were mostly free of snow and ice, and the weather was mostly sunny, often with clear blue skies that gave us superb views of the mountains, particularly on the drive north to Fairbanks. The Seward Highway must rank as one of the most spectacular drives in North America, and the Parks Highway isn’t too shabby on a clear, late winter day when the dry, northerly air flow gives the atmosphere an unusual clarity that emphasizes the enormity of the mountains.

On Wednesday afternoon we arrived at Seward Elementary School just in time to see a little of the Wax Museum performances by Marc’s students. Each student had selected an historic character that they admire, did some research and wrote a paper, and finally created a costume and props. The event is known as the Wax Museum because the students pose as wax figures, standing still as if on display. Then, when touched lightly on the shoulder, they come to life and describe their chosen character, sometimes even putting on a short dramatic performance. In the afternoon the Wax Museum was open to the elementary school students, and in the evening it was open to the community. The students did a wonderful job that reflected a lot of hard work.

The following morning we spent about an hour in the classroom talking about lake ice and snow before we went out to Bear Lake with Marc and seven students. A stiff breeze was offset by the bright sunshine and the beautiful scenery surrounding the lake ice study site. The students quickly began their tasks, the five girls making snow depth and temperature measurements, the two boys taking the snow samples. The temperature at the bottom of the snow cover was 0°C because the Bear Lake study site was flooded once again due to the mass of about 45 cm of recently accumulated snow. The site has flooded often this winter and most of the thickening of the ice cover has been the result of the freezing of the slush on the ice surface.

After measuring the ice thickness with the hot-wire gauges, which were almost buried because of the build up of snow ice at the surface and the recent snowfall, we took an ice core and measured 0.62 m of snow ice (the result of flooding and then freezing of slush) out of a total thickness of 0.75 m. The accretion of snow ice has also helped to make the Bear Lake ice the third thickest in the ALISON network this winter. This is very valuable information and we owe a lot to Marc Swanson and his students for their dedication to making good measurements that provide interesting insights into lake ice processes.

We should also mention our visits to Tri-Valley School, Healy, and Wasilla High School. We spent about an hour with Mrs. Gallego’s students at Tri-Valley School. They and Mrs. DeBlauw’s class have shared the responsibility for making measurements at the ALISON study site at Horseshoe Lake, Denali National Park. The lake ice and snow measurement program has been an integral part of an ecology unit that began in September 2003 before freeze up. We had visited the lake with some of the students during Winterfest at the end of February, and now we had the opportunity to meet all the students and talk to them about snow and ice properties and processes. We had a very productive, one-hour discussion as the students asked questions and demonstrated their new knowledge and understanding.

Soon after Mrs. Gallego’s students went outside to enjoy recess in the new snow, we were back on the road heading south to Wasilla to meet Cheryl McDowell. We last saw Cheryl and her students in early December 2003 when we set up the study site with Marc Swanson at Lucille Lake on a sunny afternoon, and then worked with the students in the dark the following morning. Now that it is March, we visited the lake on St.Patrick’s Day in daylight at 8 am with a group of about 24 students. The sun was shining, but the students seemed to be distracted from the science by the light wind and air temperature of about -8°C. It was probably one of the coldest occasions that the students had visited Lucille Lake, where Cheryl has maintained a regular measurement schedule with small groups of students after school. /td>