Permafrost outreach 2009

Next morning (Oct.23, 2007) after we download data from Kenny Lake, We start drive for Northway another 180 miles. The way go up to Northway, we stop by Gakona, Chistochina, Slana, Mentasta Lake schools for future borehole establishment!
Northway is the almost boder village to Canada. That why some of the students have relatives in Beaver Creek (Canada). We arrive village after 6:00 pm and start drilling.
Drill is quite easy in the frozen sand all the way to 6m. We finish all of the installation around 8pm.

On Wednesday morning, Kenji met science teacher (Jennifer) and students. We have a chance to talk two classroom until noon. Then after checking temperature, we head back to Fairbanks.

We (Tohru and Kenji) have a plan to visit schools in the Copper River watershed area this week.
Big triangle means the road system making triangle shape between Delta Junction, Glennallen, and Tok in Alaska. At first we stop by Gakona study site, then download Glennallen high school.


After the download, we move to Kenny Lake. At the Kenny Lake school, we install datalogger and sensors.

We had busy schedule for visiting four schools today!
At first, we drove straight to the Cantwell from Fairbanks (150 miles) in snowy condition.
Once we arrived Cantwell, we discussed with pricipal (Pete) about frost tube and heaving monitoring issue.


After the installation for the frost tube, we went to Denali Center (but not install in this time). Then we went to Healy to install frost tube.


After Healy, we went to Anderson. School was already ended and no students around. but Tricia (science teacher) and principal Dr. Geoffrey Buerger was waiting us to schdule drilling.



There was little bit difficult drilling in Anderson. Because of glacial sediments were mainly gravel and boulder! We did use classic percussion method to install PVC pipes.

We are back in Fairbanks this week. It is nice to be back in our hometown.

We drilled again on Thursday and established a permafrost monitoring station and a frost tube monitoringt site at Randy Smith Middle School.



I spent all day giving permafrost presentations to a total of six classes. However, I feel great and not tired because students were so good and patient.









After the presentations, Mike and Kenji installed the datalogger and frost tube in the monitoring station in the school yard.







Science teacher Mr. Mike Geil is a really nice teacher and also all of the students are really good and know a lot about permafrost!

By the time we were back to Whitehorse, Panya already download the data from the Whitehorse permafrost station.
Data shows very warm permafrost! (you can download from our web site.!


Takhini Hot Springs is a nice hot spring close to Whitehorse, about 20 min away. Tohru and Kenji soaked in the outside pool and celebrated the succsseful Canada field trip.



However, on the way back to Alaska, Winter finally caught up with us! driving in the slippery snow was difficult and slow.



The Beaver Creek permafrost station was also already covered by snow.
We just download the data and changed batteries, and then crossed the border to the US.

We flew from Old Crow to Inuvik, and then back to Dawson with Air North, which is the only way out of Old Crow.






From Dawson, Tohru and Kenji got back on the truck and headed to Faro (another 500km drive!).
Kenji collected water samples at major river crossings along the way.
The road condition was not great because of snow and the wet dirt-road. We made it to the B&B past 10pm.




Next Morning, we drove another 60km to Ross River.

Most of the students remembered Kenji.
Kneji demonstrated how the thermisters worked and showed the students what a spectrometer does.







After the talk in class, we downloaded the data and changed the datalogger batteries.



After visiting the Ross River school, we rushed back to Faro.
Then talked to two classes at Faro in the afternoon. Again, Faro students remembered Kenji and was able to further disscuss about permafrost, and learned about their monitoring station.

We met students in the morning at the Robert Service School, Dawson. We all went out of the classroom and installed temperature sensors in the borehole.


After the measurement of the temperature, Panya, Tohru, and Kenji catch up to the airplane for Old Crow.
Old Crow is the only remote village in Yukon Territory, Canada. Other rests of villages are connected with road system.
We arrived in Old Crow around 12:00 noon and met principal Vaino Latvala and science teacher Manuela Zeitlhofer. We had snowstorms during our visit. However, we success to install a datalogger and sensors in the borehole.

After buying supplies we left Whitehorse and headed for Dawson.


We had lunch at Five Finger Rapids Lookout.



We arrived in Dawson around 2:30 and met principal Philip Cull and science teacher Liz Wood.











At the site, Panya first dug out the dirt layer, and then the gravel layer with a shovel.
After the hole was about 50cm deep, Kenji strated drilling the borehole.














At about 3.70cm deep we hit another gravel layer and stopped drilling.









And a successful permafrost monitoring station was installed.






Since we could not go as deep as we wanted, we tried drilling in another location.
The drilling went on well into the evening, but we stopped after hitting a couple of gravel layers.