Vineyard Students Experience Climate Science First-hand

Published September 5, 2016 at 11:32 PM EDT

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Students from Jonah Maidoff's Resilient Communities course at Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School traveled to the Alaskan Arctic with climate scientists this summer.

Courtesy of Astrid Tilton

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Students from Jonah Maidoff's Resilient Communities course at Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School traveled to the Alaskan Arctic with climate scientists this summer.

Courtesy of Astrid Tilton

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Students took soil samples, called cores, and measured the extent of permafrost thawing.

Courtesy of Astrid Tilton

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Students took soil samples, called cores, and measured the extent of permafrost thawing.

Courtesy of Astrid Tilton

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Sue Natali, of Woods Hole Research Center, works with Lucy Thompson.

Courtesy of Astrid Tilton

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Sue Natali, of Woods Hole Research Center, works with Lucy Thompson.

Courtesy of Astrid Tilton

Last fall, Jonah Maidoff's Resilient Communities class at Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School was planning a trip to Paris. They were to attend the U.N. climate negotiations and witness history in the making. But the trip was canceled after the November 13th terrorist attacks.

This summer, those students instead traveled to Alaska to not only watch, but take part in, the science that underlies climate policies. They worked with a team of scientists led by Sue Natali of Woods Hole Research Center (incidentally, mom to one of the students), taking soil samples and measuring the depth (or lack thereof) of frozen soil known as permafrost. Permafrost contains an enormous amount of carbon, which could be released as it thaws, dramatically exacerbating the warming caused by human-produced greenhouse gas emissions.

The trip lasted ten days, but the experience is far from over. Students in Maidoff's class this school year will be producing a documentary about it, and one graduate says it has influenced what she plans to study in college.