PAL Researchers Featured in Rutgers Today for their K-12 Outreach

Congratulations to Mya Sharpe, Maya Thomas, and Abby Tomita for their shoutout in Rutgers Today!

All three stepped into the role of educational video star earlier this year, describing the work they do and the importance of polar research with an audience of 1300+ K-12 students.

These lucky students had the opportunity to take part in the yearly Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Live Video Teleconferences (VTC) series. A main staple of our outreach work in the Antarctic, this year students asked “Have you ever seen penguin siblings fight for food?” and “How does bird flu affect the penguins?” and “What can we do here that will slow or stop ice melt there?” 

These calls are a tangible connection between the polar research we do right now and a Rutgers educational initiative called “Data to the Rescue: Penguins Need Our Help!” Created by Rutgers University’s Department of Marine Science and 4-H NJ Cooperative Extension, this program takes students on an 8-week journey from the comfort of their class and club rooms. Students learned how to plan for a trip to Antarctica, create an appropriate research team, collect data and analyze graphs, and communicate the data they found. Using postcards featuring online learning activities and complementary in-person guided learning sessions, students finished the activity more appreciative of the data-intensive research work ongoing and more self-confident in their own ability to pursue career paths like these. 

Inevitably, every VTC session ends with the same urgent question: What can we, as students in the U.S., do to help Antarctica? And in every session, we end with an emphasis on the power these students have—learning about science, sharing what they discovered with others, and becoming active voters and advocates for science in their communities. 

The students of our country have endless questions about what it takes to become a researcher and how they can get there. With the help of the LTER VTC calls, the LTER researchers, and the Data to the Rescue activity, they leave every VTC call with the tools needed to spark interest in science and climate action. 

You can find the full story by Mitaali Taskar in Rutgers Today.