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Environmental scientists couldn’t wait to get back to work this year after having to sacrifice precious field time in 2020 due to pandemic shutdowns. At����in arctic Alaska, the summer field season is brief and intense: Scientists flock there to take advantage of 24-hour light and thawed soil before, once again, the long, frozen, dark winter descends.

Among the core contingents at Toolik are scientists associated with the National Science Foundation’s����(LTER) site, which has been managed by an MBL principal investigator (currently��Ed Rastetter) since its founding in 1987. The Arctic is one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth, and scientists are focused on how tundra, stream, and lake ecosystems are responding to climate change and disturbance.

Five alumni of the MBL’s undergraduate��Semester in Environmental Science��program are among the global assemblage of field researchers who converged at Toolik this year (pictured below):

SES alumni at Toolik in 2021 (L-R) Miriam Ritchie, Wheaton College (’20); Ruby An, University of Chicago (’17); Sarah Messenger, Trinity College (‘18); Nick Patel, Swarthmore College (’18); and Abigail Rec, Gettysburg College (’20). Photo courtesy of Sarah Messenger.