Polar STEAM Polar Educators

The Polar STEAM Polar Educators program facilitates virtual and field deployments to the Arctic and Antarctic for both formal and informal educators in the United States. The program, funded by the National Science Foundation, works with faculty from community colleges, middle and high school educators, as well as informal educators who can incorporate polar science education into their work.

Polar STEAM often pairs educators with scientists based at Toolik Field Station. Educators can learn more about the program and how to apply on the Polar STEAM website.

Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research program

Located at Toolik Field Station since 1987, the Arctic LTER seeks to understand and predict the effects of environmental change on Arctic landscapes, both natural and anthropogenic. Through a mix of long-term ecological monitoring, experimental manipulation, and modeling, Arctic LTER scientists gain an understanding of ecosystem structure and function, with the aim to predict how Arctic ecosystems respond to environmental change.

Each summer, the program hosts between two and 10 K-12 teachers to provide field research experiences and co-create lessons using real-life data.

Contact the Arctic LTER’s education coordinator Amanda Morrison at arcticlter.education@gmail.com for more information.

PolarTREC

The PolarTREC program provided field research experiences for teachers in the Arctic and Antarctica. Researchers at Toolik Field Station have hosted 19 PolarTREC teachers. As of 2025, PolarTREC is no longer in operation. Past PolarTREC educators at Toolik are:

• 2021 - Liza Backman
• 2019 - Alejandra Martinez, David Walker, Kate Steeper
• 2018 - Melissa Lau, Svea Anderson, Kim Young
• 2017 - Jennifer Baldacci,
• 2016 - DJ Kast, Nell Kemp
• 2014 - Andre Wille, Lauren Watel, Regina Brinker, 
• 2013 - Alicia Gillean, Bruce Taterka, Nell Kemp, 
• 2012 - Melissa Barker, Susan Steiner, Nick LaFave

Mosquito Diversity in Alaska

Learn all about mosquito diversity in Alaska in this module for undergraduate biology students. The learning module features real-world data collected by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) at five sites across Alaska, including Toolik Field Station. Students explore data on the abundance and timing of several mosquito species common to the Arctic and analyze connected temperature and soil moisture information. 

It was created by Toolik’s SEDC manager Amanda Young in collaboration with others from the University of Alaska and the National Ecological Observatory Network, with funding support from the National Science Foundation award #2120710.

Data Nuggets

Data Nuggets are free classroom activities, co-designed by scientists and teachers. When using Data Nuggets, students are provided with the details of authentic science research projects, and then work through an activity looking for patterns and developing explanations about natural phenomena using the scientific data from the study. Below are Data Nuggets that have been created from research at Toolik Field Station. 

• Which tundra plants will win the climate change race?
• Limit by Limit: Nutrients Control Algal Growth
• Streams as Sensors: Arctic Watersheds as Indicators of Change

Arctic LTER

The following lesson plans were created by K-12 educators who visited Toolik Field Station as part of the Arctic LTER’s Research Experiences for Teachers program.

• The Great Tardigrade Hunt: What is the Density of Water Bears in your Local Habitat? (High School)
• Nitrogen’s Effect on an Ecosystem (Middle School)
• Phenology (Middle School)
• Pluck (High School)
• Pluck (Middle School)

PolarTREC

While PolarTREC is no longer in operation, you can find educator resources, including videos, reports, and presentations, on the PolarTREC resources webpage. 

Below are lessons and activities created by PolarTREC educators at Toolik Field Station. 

All Grades

• Polar Scientists: Polar Science
• Technology Enhances KWL
• Global Decomposition Project

Elementary School

• Help Our House is Sinking! Engineering Solutions for Thawing Permafrost
• What Makes an Effective Scientist? Interviews with Arctic Scientists
• Squirrely Numbers: Exploring Arctic Ground Squirrel Data

Middle School

• What is My Footprint?
• Soil Study
• Investigating Polar Science
• Water Cycling: Movement through Watersheds and Water Tracks
• Phenology of Vegetation Inside and Outside the Classroom
• Green Seekers in the Alaskan Tundra
• Berry Interesting Data
• Modeling the Influence of Sunlight on Release of Carbon Dioxide from Thawing Permafrost
• Investigating Permafrost Depth in the Arctic
• The March of Nitrifiers - Good or Bad?
• The Plot Thickens
• Just How Green is Green?
• Permafrost Inquiry
• Toolik, Daylight, and Darkness

High School

• Thawing Permafrost Lessons and Lab Manual: A Multi-Lesson Resource
• Photobleaching in Arctic Streams – Spectrophotometry and Beer’s Law
• Characterization of Complex Organic Mixtures
• Arctic Ground Squirrels Data Analysis
• Arctic Ground Squirrel Activity Data-Based Question
• Using the IMOLD Interactive Model of Leaf Decomposition
• Biodiversity of Ecosystems

Polar STEAM

• Tundra Ecosystem Change Webquest (middle school)
• Doing the Research! (middle school)
• Data and Art! (middle school)

Want to create your own lessons based on real-world data? All of the data collected by Toolik Field Station is free and available for anyone to download and use. First, agree to our conditions of use. Then you’ll be able to download full datasets for free.

We have both biotic and abiotic data available to download on our Environmental Data Center’s webpages. You can also find open-access data from the Toolik region in the Toolik portal on the Arctic Data Center’s data repository.

Additional data is available from the Arctic Long Term Ecological Research site and the National Ecological Observatory Network.

Toolik Field Station is located in Alaska’s remote Arctic tundra, offering countless opportunities to experience the region’s rich natural history. Our station’s naturalist and other staff share their observations in the Toolik Naturalist Journal. 

We also have guides to the region’s mammals, birds, fish, and plants. More information about the region’s natural history is shared in our virtual herbarium, animal sighting interactive data visualization tool, and our annual summaries of weather and wildlife.

Take a Virtual Field Trip with 360˚ Videos & Photos

Join Toolik scientists as they venture out to research sites in our 360˚ videos and photos. Measure lake ice, kayak on the lake, take water samples from a warm spring, and more. Videos can be viewed on any screen but work best in a VR headset. 

A selection of videos is available on our 360˚ content webpage. Contact us at uaf-toolik-edc@alaska.edu for higher-quality images and more options.

Virtual Classroom Visits

Learn about Toolik research and the station in a video between your class and a Toolik scientist or science support staff. We’ll share some photos and videos about our work and answer all your students’ questions. Calls range from 15 to 60 minutes, depending on what works best for you and your class. 

Sign up for a virtual classroom visit by contacting Haley Dunleavy at hdunleavy@alaska.edu or call 907-474-6407.

Have questions about the Arctic or life at a remote research station? Write to us! We’ll send a letter back with answers to your questions and some free stickers or postcards for you and your students. Send snail mail to:

Toolik Field Station
c/o pen pal
2120 N. Koyukuk Dr. #138
Fairbanks, Alaska
99775-7005

Or you could email us a letter at uaf-iab-toolik@alaska.edu with the subject “Classroom pen pals.”