Answers to your questions...

1. (Missy) I think the whole process is so cool and that you are doing really well... Stay warm!
Thanks Missy – I am trying to stay warm. It was 40 degrees today with 22 mph wind gusts. I have posted a picture of the anemometer that I use each morning to check the weather.

2. (Austin) What is the duration of the Aurora Borealis and what colors do you actually see?
The Aurora Borealis duration in the evening varies depending on the weather. The other night we saw the lights for about 2 hours. The colors were a beautiful green in the sky.

3. (Jackie) What were the other groups that you met up with doing?
The other groups were gathering different sets of data: Soil profiles, Relative abundance of vegetative species, and a vegetative composition survey of the tundra, boreal forest, and ecotone.

All of the data that we are collecting fall into a tree study and are restricted to the arctic summer months (June - October) because of seasonal affects; i.e. snow. This data is establishing a series of baselines for future annual variability monitoring of vegetation for the next four years.

4. (Mrs. Gibson) Are you still going to skype at 2:30 tomorrow after school?
I will be skyping to Morristown High School 12:30 pm in order to converse with the research science class.

5. (Steph) When is the growing season for the trees and how much do they grow?
The growing season for trees is June - October. Trees are very old up here. We surveyed a 3 meter tree that was over forty years old. Trees talk longer to grow here but live longer then the trees back home.

6. (Kelsey) Can you post pictures of the animals that you have seen up there? What have you learned about other than what we saw this morning?
Kelsey, I wish I could show you pictures of animals… but we have not seen any. We saw our first signs of wildlife yesterday. A few snow geese and a squirrel. Hopefully over the next few days I should be able to send you a few. We are hiking on Saturday in hopes to see a few animals.