K-12 teachers and students are involved in on-going IPY Earth system science research through the Seasons and Biomes project. By monitoring the seasons in their biomes, students are learning how interactions within the Earth system affect their local environment and how in turn their local environment affects regional and global environments. The tundra and taiga/boreal forest are the two biomes that are being studied during the first two years to coincide with IPY. This past year temperate deciduous and tropical deciduous biomes have been added. This project has been using the plant phenology protocols developed by LTER scientists Verbyla and Sparrow and educator specialist Leslie Gordon, as well as other GLOBE scientific protocols in the weather, land cover biology, soils and hydrology investigations. Seasons and Biomes developed freshwater ice seasonality protocols and frost tube protocol that have been piloted and will be used beyond the 4th IPY. Seasons and Biomes is funded until 2010 with the possibility of supplemental funding for 2011.

Alaska teachers have been involved in IPY not only through the Seasons and Biomes project but also in another IPY project the Ice e-Mystery e-Polar Book project that is funded by the Australian government through the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Center for Learning and Discovery for the participation of Australian teachers and by an NSF grant for the participation of Alaskan teachers. Twelve classrooms in Alaska and Australia were paired to collaborate on writing a mystery book about the polar regions. The story is fictional but the science is authentic. Alaska teachers were trained in the Seasons and Biomes science protocols and were mentored by LTER and other UAF scientists. The Australian teachers had their own science mentors.

GLOBE alumni (undergraduate students or newly graduated students who have been in the GLOBE program during their pre-college years and want to continue to work on long term environmental investigations through the GLOBE program and by working with K-12 teachers and their students). The Seasons and Biomes project are helping teachers and their students conduct long term investigations on seasons in their biomes as part of climate change studies and to understand Earth system science better.

This program was developed by Katie Villano (BNZ Graduate Student) and Christine Villano (FNSB Teacher) to promote awareness and research involving invasive plant species. It set out with three distinct units of activities: 1) Alaskan teachers and students will become familiarized with invasive and non-native plant species currently in Alaska, 2) Students will conduct meaningful, cutting edge research in experiments adapted from current University of Alaska experiments, and 3) Students will explore the relationships between human society, culture and invasive plants in Alaska.

Dr. Andrea Lloyd recently trained Middlebury College undergraduates in tree-ring analysis as part of a module in BIOL 230 (Global Change Biology). Students worked in groups of 3 to analyze tree-ring data from around the boreal forest (including LTER data in Alaska). Students were introduced to principles of tree-ring chronology development, and basic statistical methods for determining tree climate response. The project culminated in a research symposium, in which groups compiled projects to explore large-scale patterns of variability in climate response within the boreal forest.

Schoolyard LTER (SLTER) has provided professional development workshops for elementary, middle and high school teachers and year-long support by partnering with other ongoing science education programs such as the "Monitoring Seasons Through Global Learning Communities" also called "GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) Seasons and Biomes" project that is an NSF funded International Polar Year (IPY) education outreach project and the Alaska EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) Education Outreach program. LTER scientists as well as Alaska Native elders have helped conduct science institutes and workshops to prepare K-12 teachers to work with their students on ecosystem/environmental studies relevant to their locale. Schoolyard LTER has also helped provide teachers and their students with research instruments and equipment such as weather shelters, max/min thermometers, calibration thermometers, pH and conductivity meters, soil and plant color charts, measuring tape, hydrometer, kits for measuring dissolved oxygen and nitrate, and data loggers for soil and air temperature measurements. In collaboration with GLOBE Seasons and Biomes, SLTER conducted three professional development workshops for K-12 teachers in Alaska mostly for Alaska teachers but have also included teachers from Florida, California and Idaho and provided teacher support through phone calls, emails and classroom visits.