Pupils from Vardø, Daniela de la Cerda, Celine Christensen Olsen, Bjørn Sverre Henriksen, Adina Eriksen Eines and Madelen Josefsen, studying the picture of an Arctic fox. Photo: Håvard S. Mækelæ.
By Ingrid Jensvoll, UiT Arctic University of Norway
Throughout the year of 2013 pupils and teachers have studied predators, eager to get the answer to their research questions: Which predators live in the vicinity of the local community? When are they active? What is the most common predator? The research-based activity is a part of TUNDRA schoolnet, a circumpolar school project in Norway, Russia and Alaska.
Arctic foxes, an omnipresent terrestrial predator in the Arctic, were photo-captured close to three of the project schools in the winter of 2013. While the Arctic fox is close to extinction in Vardø, probably owing to climate change, it is still common at the sites in Alaska and Russia.
Cameraes
In order to study predators, the schools have received two wildlife cameras from the project. To lure predators, the students place bait in front of the camera. The wildlife cameras are set up close to the school, and when deploying them, pupils and teachers look for tracks in the snow, to get a hint of what they can expect to capture on the camera. Two weeks the cameras are retrieved, often fully loaded with pictures from the wild. The teachers report huge excitement among the pupils when they get the first glimpse of what they have captured with the cameras. This year, schools from all the three countries managed to capture pictures of the arctic fox – the only arctic predator species found everywhere in the circumpolar tundra. However, whereas it is considered an endangered species in Norway it is quite abundant in both Alaska and Arctic Russia.
Web
The project has its own web page, where the students can enter their own observations and compare results with other schools in the tundra region. The web page also contains suitable educational material for students and teachers in the project.
The teachers are essential to successful implementation of the project. TUNDRA schoolnet arranges yearly seminars aimed to give teachers competence and confidence to include the research-based activities in their teaching. The seminars are also an important step towards strengthening collaboration between schools in the Tundra region.
Climate changes
The selected topics for TUNDRA schoolnet activities are in particular motivated by the challenges of climate change. Communities in the tundra region will experience changes impacting their natural environment, more rapidly and extensively than elsewhere. It is therefore important to impart knowledge about such impacts, in order to make them understood both locally and globally. Predators inhabiting the tundra are at the top of the food web, and therefore more likely to be among the most vulnerable species. For instance, the current rarity of the arctic fox in Norway is related to fewer lemmings as available prey and stronger competition from red foxes. Monitoring predators gives opportunities to discover early changes due to climate change in Arctic ecosystems.
Tundra schoolnet
TUNDRA schoolnet is a research-based project for schools at the upper primary level in Norway, Russia and Alaska.The main objectives of TUNDRA schoolnet are:
- Promote awareness of and curiosity for the Arctic tundra ecosystem, through research-based education
- Establish a circumpolar network for students and teachers, to create a common understanding of climate-related challenges in the NorthThe scientific content in
TUNDRA schoolnet centres around three activities that give insight into species composition and important ecosystem processes in the arctic tundra.
- See the predators!
- Timing of bud burst
- Small rodent year?
TUNDRA schoolnet has originated from two research projects: Climate Ecological Observatory for Arctic Tundra (COAT) and TUNDRA. COAT is a long-term monitoring project developed by researchers at the Fram Centre. TUNDRA is an international project funded by the Norwegian Research Council / Miljø 2015.
The project has received funding from the Fram Centre and Sparebank1 Nord-Norge