Published Jul 11, 2023 by Alaska Native News

Earlier this month, 12 middle school students from Hawai’i arrived in Anchorage to join 24 Alaska middle school students in the Alaska Native Science & Engineering Program’s weeklong Middle School Academy. The students from Hawai’i joined ANSEP from the Malama Honua and Ke Kula ‘o Samuel M. Kamakau Laboratory Public Charter Schools.This was the first time students outside of Alaska participated in Middle School Academy.

ANSEP’s Middle School Academy is designed to get students involved in science, technology, engineering and math early in their academic journeys at no cost to students or their families. In this ANSEP opportunity, students engaged in a variety of STEM-focused, hands-on activities such as building computers, learning about marine sciences, and using K’NEX to understand earthquake engineering — all while collaborating with like-minded students from other communities. When students learn early on that they can achieve big things, like building their own PC, they are more likely to set big goals for themselves and take strides to achieve them.

“Middle School Academy is a fantastic introduction to STEM education and careers at an early age, and we’re so excited to expand our reach through partnerships beyond Alaska,” said ANSEP Director Matt Calhoun. “Not only did students have the opportunity to engage in hands- on STEM activities, they also met like-minded students from communities outside their home state and were introduced to other cultures.”

Published Jul 11, 2023 by Timmy Broderick

“We’re not going to change the fact that our volcanoes don’t send us a signal until right before the eruption,” Hon says. “That’s the nature of the beast, right? It’s just sitting there, and then it strikes. So we just have to be ready on that sort of timescale to take that on and identify it accurately.”

There are some signs of progress. Italian scientists created an automatic warning system that successfully predicted 57 out of 59 eruptions of Mount Etna (though just around an hour ahead of time) over a period of nearly a decade starting in 2008. And in 2021 researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Alaska Fairbanks claimed they found warning signs on five volcanoes years in advance by analyzing heat signatures beneath the behemoths.

The next obstacle for volcano eruption forecasts is determining an eruption’s strength. Moran says he thinks the increase in available data will help solve this mystery, leading to more helpful forecasts for local communities.

“It’s not sufficient for us to write papers and call it good,” Moran says. “We have to be out in the communities, spreading the word and making sure that the information we have is understandable—and is understood by those who need to know it.”

Published Jul 11, 2023 by Super User

On July 12 and 13, the Wilson Center, in partnership with the University of Alaska, Department of Energy's Arctic Energy Office, and RAND Corporation, is hosting a two-day dialogue about critical minerals in the North American Arctic.

The dialogue will develop policy recommendations for development of critical mineral resources in the Arctic, in the context of US national security, energy, climate, and technology goals.

This dialogue will be solutions-oriented, producing actionable policy and investment recommendations. There are three distinct elements of the agenda: six individual working sessions, focusing on community ownership, financing, infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, supply chains, and workforce development; a tabletop exercise quantifying risk prioritization in minerals development, and three public keynote sessions.

Proceedings from the tabletop exercise and briefs from the working sessions will be publicly available once finalized.

This dialogue builds upon the inaugural August 2022 conference, entitled Alaska's Minerals: A Strategic National Imperative, hosted by the University of Alaska, US Arctic Research Commission, and Wilson Center.