Polar Date July 7, 2008
Lab 2 team had a day off since we had worked on Sunday. Everyone did their own thing, some went on a long, long hike into the Brooks Range, some did laundry, some got caught up with personal correspondence, some napped and lazed around and I got caught up on picture work and journals for PolarTrec.
The rest of the field station was working as usual, collecting samples, surveying plots, going out in boats, analyzing data, going to remote sites via helicopter, etc. It’s odd that there can be over 100 people staying at camp, yet during the day, it looks like a ghost town, everyone is so busy with science. It’s like a gigantic science fair is coming up, and in a way, it is.
The majority of the research being done here is funded through National Science Foundation (NSF) grants. The grant proposals are very specific and go through a rigorous review process. Once the funding has been secured, the principal investigator (PI) must ensure the proposal is executed and completed to the specifications for the grant. For more information on this process, click here: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/
I’ll leave you with a picture from the gallery that best reflects the pace and flavor of this day off for the team from Lab 2, a quiet peaceful day.
Across and beyond Toolik Lake the snowy mountains of the Brook Range loom in the distance.
Signing off from Toolik Lake, and remember, "There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew”. ~Marshall McLuhan, 1964