CryoConn 2010 attracted teachers from the largest urban center to some of the smallest native villages in Alaska.

The heart of the CryoConn 2010 (Cryosphere Connections & Winter Science Professional Development) workshop, held Jan. 6-9, was a just-released children’s book, Apun: The Arctic Snow, and its companion teacher’s guide. Both were written by Dr. Matthew Sturm, a physical scientist with the Alaska Projects Office of the Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). The laboratory is part of the Army Corps’ Engineer Research and Development Center.

Sturm wrote Apun to teach a new generation of cold-region residents about the importance of Arctic snow cover. For centuries, Arctic natives have depended on their knowledge of the "snow year" cycle to survive. As a result, the Inupiaq language includes 25 words to distinguish the different types of snow. The book explains the unique crystalline structure of snowflakes, the unusual ability of snow to change molecular form, and snow’s surprising insulating properties, among other topics.

Sturm opened the workshop with highlights from Apun, followed by fieldwork to obtain snow and ice-core samples for analysis. “Winter surrounds Alaska’s schools for much of the school year, and winter is an oft-overlooked natural laboratory,” one teacher remarked.

Mary Hakala, education coordinator for SpringBoard’s K-16 STEM Initiative, praised Sturm as an "exemplary scientist and wonderful educator who is able to translate the science into meaningful ideas for classroom teachers."

The remainder of the three-day CryoConn workshop involved presentations and hands-on activities that demonstrated ideas for teaching winter science through math, art, and other disciplines. The teachers heard from experts at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, International Arctic Research Center, and Alaska Department of Fish & Game. Topics included the physical properties of snow, ice, and permafrost; life on and under the snow; the Arctic landscape; animal cold-weather adaptations; wildlife tracking; and the state of the cryosphere.

One of the participating teachers summed up the CryoConn workshop experience: "The cryosphere is a major component of Earth’s climate system, and conditions are changing rapidly in the Arctic. What better way, then, to explore relevant science than to examine the snow-filled world outside the schoolhouse door? "

The workshop was sponsored by the Juneau Economic Development Council’s SpringBoard STEM program, with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense and additional support from the National Defense Education Program (NDEP), which supplied STEM Learning Kits to participating teachers.