CARRABASSETT VALLEY — Dan Frost, local teacher/scientist, will give a talk on “Climate Change, The Arctic, and a Field Season in Svalbard” at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 21, at the Carrabassett Valley Library. The session is open to the public.

Frost, a Farmington native, teaches science and math at Carrabassett Valley Academy. Since graduating from Bates College in 2005 with a degree in geology, Frost has devoted a lot of time to researching and educating young scientists on climate change.

Last summer, Frost spent six weeks in Svalbard, a group of Norwegian-governed islands north of the Arctic Circle. Frost worked with a multi-national team monitoring glacier, lake, and permafrost environments and recovering sediment cores for paleoclimate reconstruction.

Over the period, Frost kept online journals of the experience through the PolarTREC program (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating), which aims to bring K-12 educators and polar researchers together to disseminate knowledge of polar science and environments.

Most recently, Frost was a presenter at the 43th annual Arctic Workshop in Amherst, Mass. Frost exhibited some of his finding in Svalbard and expressed the importance of incorporating arctic research in secondary education curriculum.

“Making students aware of the unprecedented change that is happening in the arctic and how it can and will have global effects is extremely important,” said Frost, “then by getting students involved in field and lab-based projects here at home, they can draw parallels to both arctic science and our own formerly glaciated environment.”

Copy the Story Link