ALASKA: NSF EPSCoR Summer of Science
Earlier this summer, 18 high-school aged Alaskan girls piled into kayaks and packrafts and emerged with both new ecological knowledge and a lot more confidence in themselves.
That’s the idea behind “Girls on Water” and “Girls in the Forest,” two Alaska NSF EPSCoR-sponsored experiential learning programs that overcame COVID hurdles to hold successful wilderness expeditions in 2021. In July, nine 16- and 17-year-old girl-identified youths from across the state took part in “Girls on Water,” a week-plus scientific kayak expedition in Kachemak Bay. Then in August, nine “Girls in the Forest” spent more than a week packrafting the Chena River and learning about fire science along the way.
The expeditions are designed to help the girls gain confidence in the backcountry, but also to expose them to art and to field science. To that end, they took art and science lessons and spent considerable time gathering scientific data along the route. “We did a lot of different ecological surveys in the intertidal, learning how to use quadrats, and making different observations in the intertidal zone, looking at the different plants and animals that live there,” explained instructor Steffi O’Daly.