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The University of Maine is creating a program that will give students the opportunity to study an environment far more arctic than a January in Maine: Northern Manitoba.
A new summer course called Polar Marine Ecology, SMS 497, invovles independent study that will let students live and conduct research in the Churchill Northern Studies Centre in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.
The registration deadline is between the end of February and March 30 and enrollment is limited to 15 students. The cost of the trip is estimated to be between $2,300 and $2,800, in addition to regular tuition.
Rhian Waller, an assistant research professor of marine sciences, will teach the class for undergraduate and graduate students, who will learn basic information and conduct research on threatened ecosystems of the polar climate.
Full and partial scholarships are available, especially for students who want “to take advantage of … funds to help offset costs of the class,” according to Waller. Accommodations and equipment rentals are offered by the center.
In an email, Waller wrote the experience of the class goes beyond learning and that she would like students to “come out with a greater understanding of the holistic nature of our environment.”
“What I’d like students to get out of this experience goes beyond learning about the polar marine ecosystem and beyond field skills on a research project,” Waller wrote. “I believe one of the best ways to learn is through doing, so being on location and being part of a greater research project is an ideal way to impart this.”
Much of Waller’s research is done through the Darling Marine Center, a marine laboratory that is part of the university’s School of Marine Sciences, in Walpole, Maine. The first session of the Polar Studies course will be held from June 11 to 26, when students will receive a seminar and basic instructions on field skills they will need for the trip.
The class will “deal with learning about the Antarctic. Students will learn about high latitude marine environments, from the physical environment, habitats, adaptations and the organisms that live there,” according to Waller.
The second part of the course, held from July 3 to 14, will be at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, a nonprofit research facility in Canada. There students will conduct research of their own to comparing Maine to Canada’s Hudson Bay area, studying polar bears and snorkeling with beluga whales.
While this is a new course for her, Waller said she has had some experience in all the areas to be covered.
“I’ve taught aspects of Polar Marine Ecology in other classes before, and I’ve taught field skills before, and taken many students to the Antarctic on research cruises,” she wrote, “but I’ve never combined all these pieces together into one course.”
Bangor Daily News