Permafrost tunnel education project receives grant

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has received a $1.5 million grant to use a frozen underground tunnel near Fairbanks to teach about permafrost and its role in the global climate.

The money from the National Science Foundation will fund a four-year, multipronged project titled “Hot Times in Cold Places: The Hidden World of Permafrost.” It builds on a half-century of climate-related education and outreach activities at the nation’s only research permafrost tunnel.

The project will upgrade exhibits and programs at the tunnel, which is located in Fox, just north of Fairbanks, and operated by the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.

The project also will create an exhibit about permafrost and the tunnel that will tour the nation, starting at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland.

Other programs, exhibits and oral history presentations will be taken to villages in Alaska.

Researchers with the project will also study the power of immersive experiences and real objects to improve learning about climate change.

Professor Matthew Sturm is the principal investigator. Research assistant professor Laura Conner is co-investigator, while Angela Larson, owner of the Goldstream Group, will serve as the external evaluator. Postdoctoral fellow Santosh Panda and senior science consultant Jessica Garron will take the traveling program to 27 small, remote and mostly Native communities in Alaska on a rolling schedule.

Vicki Coats of OMSI serves as a co-investigator on the project. OMSI will build the first-ever national traveling exhibit on permafrost. The 2,000-square-foot exhibit is expected to visit three museums per year for eight years.

The work is funded as an Innovations in Development project through the NSF’s Advancing Informal STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) Learning program.

MG/10-8-15/079-15