Update
Be sure to check out this team's ongoing work at Float Your Boat. Float Your Boat is a project for community members and students to learn about the Arctic Ocean – its circulation, its sea-ice cover, and how it’s changing.
Now Archived! PolarConnect event with educator Sarah Johnson and the team working on the International Arctic Buoy Program in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. This event was broadcast on Tuesday, 5 April 2022. You can access this and other events on the PolarConnect Archives webpage.
What Are They Doing?
Sarah and the team will be headed out for a second deployment to Thule, Greenland in June-July 2022.
Where Are They?
Latest Journals
Sarah R. Johnson is a landscape-based environmental educator. As a freelance science educator she is focused on climate change, public lands, watershed science, civics, and geography, and teaching and learning through Wild Rose Education. She designs and facilitates educator professional development workshops, teaches public lands courses, and facilitates a southwestern US cohort of climate change educators. She also teaches graduate courses for Western Colorado University’s Teacher Institute. Sarah has created and facilitated numerous environmental education programs including the award winning Youth Water Leadership Program.
Sarah earned her MAEd: Natural Science and Environmental Education from Hamline University, St. Paul, MN, and holds a B.S. Biology from Missouri State University, Springfield, MO. Her graduate research involved case studies of science teacher professional development programs at biological field stations across the country. Sarah's background includes watershed education, outreach, facilitation, environmental education, wilderness trip leading, and interpretation. She, a leader in the field of EE, builds inclusive networks of colleagues committed to excellence. She currently serves as an eePro Group moderator for the Spirituality and EE Group as well as the Guidelines for Excellence in EE. Sarah also volunteers as a programmatic advisor for the World Association for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts Girl-led Action for Climate Change program in Latin American and the Caribbean.
She is excited to find ways to authentically relate the science and landscape study of the Arctic to the rural mountain communities of Colorado as well as back to her childhood home in rural southwest Missouri and to many other communities of friends and colleagues around the country and beyond. She has been based in western Colorado working to protect rivers and public lands through education since 2004 where she enjoys playing outside during all seasons, gardening, and making music. Learn more about Sarah at Wild Rose Education.
John Woods is a native of Lavallette, NJ and currently resides in Annapolis, MD with his wife and 3 kids. He studied Oceanography at the United States Naval Academy and obtained his master’s degree in Oceanography and Meteorology at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. John served on active duty in the U.S. Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer on the USS Cleveland (LPD-7) deploying to the Persian Gulf two times, and as a Meteorology and Oceanography (METOC) Officer at the U.S. Naval Ice Center. His final tour was back at the U.S. Naval Academy teaching in the Oceanography Department where he created the Polar Science Program. This assignment first introduced him to Polar Operations and Logistics leading 4 different learning activities to the Arctic Region. After transitioning to the Navy Reserves, he was the Project Manager for NASA's Operation IceBridge, successfully executing over a dozen science campaigns to both the Polar North and South. Most recently John was a physical scientist for NOAA at the U.S. National Ice Center until recently transitioning back to the Navy in his current position with the Office of Naval Research, International Engagement Office focusing on collaborations with polar nations.
IGNATIUS RIGOR, Ph.D., is a climatologist at the Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), and an affiliate assistant professor in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. Dr. Rigor studies sea ice, and how it interacts with the atmosphere and ocean. His primary tools for research are observations from drifting buoys and satellites.
On this episode of "Hey, You're Pretty Good at That" on KDNK Community Radio in Carbondale, Colorado Host Ape on the Dink chats with local environmental educator Sarah Johnson about polar adventures, environmental education, and her recent trip to Scotland.