Students on Ice, Day 7: Don’t Stop

It was a thrill to help budding journalists learning to tell each other’s stories as well as their own. On the fore deck, they documented our first sighting of icebergs, and captured an impromptu dance lesson, as students from Iqaliut and Memphis swapped moves (not the only cultural blending I’ve witnessed – a throat singing session somehow morphed into a group rendition of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing).

(C) Sara Falconer/WWF-Canada
Inside, reporters diligently took notes at a presentation by Eric Galbraith, Inga May and Eric Mattson on “The State of the Cryosphere”: composed of sea ice, permafrost and glaciers. Due to climate change, we are losing sea ice much more quickly than “overly optimistic” models had predicted, they explained, and almost all of the glaciers in the world are disappearing. Students who live in areas that have permafrost raised their hands to share observations about the effects of climate in their communities.
Mikaela and Cassie have been working on a special Students on Ice Climate Witness video, and we’re about to upload footage of the pod of fin whales that kept us company for a while this afternoon. We also had a fog-bow nearby for most of the day – which, apparently, is the name for a rainbow without rain.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kozU2vR2sY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Although the ice and fog were too treacherous for us to navigate to land today, biologist and documentarian David Gray gave us a taste of what to expect, sharing some beautiful photos and tales.  Now that we’ve got our first broadcast “in the can” (a term we taught the students today), we’re excited to report on what we find on the shores of Greenland tomorrow.