More than 180 eighth-graders from Boulder's Southern Hills Middle School will visit the University of Colorado at Boulder on Friday, April 28, for an excursion involving lab tours, talks, science games and a field trip along Boulder Creek.
The students will be hosted by CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and the National Snow and Ice Data Center on the university's East Campus. The students will be at CU-Boulder from about 9 a.m. to noon.
The eighth-graders will be sampling the aquatic insect life along Boulder Creek during the visit as part of an ecosystem education project coordinated by INSTAAR. They also will tour INSTAAR's sediment, radiocarbon, stable isotope, dissolved organic matter, pollen and tree-ring dating labs.
The event also will include a talk by INSTAAR research associate William Manley, titled "Global Warming and the Arctic in 3D" that will include an animated "fly-through" of the Arctic region. A second talk, by INSTAAR doctoral student Craig Lee, will focus on an INSTAAR archaeology project tied to ancient artifacts revealed by melting from the world's receding glaciers as a result of warming temperatures.
The Southern Hills students also will tour NSIDC facilities. NSIDC, part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, conducts research around the world and archives and distributes data on snow, avalanches, glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice and ice cores. NSIDC is a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The East Campus is located near the intersection of 30th Street and Marine Street.