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About
this web site
This web site will give
you an introduction to our research: what questions we are
asking, how we are trying to answer them, and what we have
learned so far. It will also give you some general background
information about climate change and the natural history of
the boreal forest. We have created this web site for two reasons.
First, we hope to introduce a variety of people, but especially
those people who live in and around the areas in which we
do our research, to our research project and more generally
to the issues surrounding climate change and ecology in Alaska.
Second, we hope to use it as a way to collect observations
from people living in and around the areas in which we do
our research. We welcome your feedback on the site, and hope
you enjoy what you find here. We want to thank the support
of the National Science Foundation for helping to fund our
community outreach efforts.
How to
use this site (a suggestion)
The navigation bar at
the bottom of the pages gives you quick access to all parts
of the site. Basically, the site is broadly divided into two
sections: Reaseach - which outlines our work and findings
in the Alaskan Boreal forest - and Educational dialogue
- which puts you in close touch with our data and enables
you to report any good observations that would be useful to
the research community at large. Feel free to visit the various
parts in whatever order seems best for you! (We recommend
that you use a 600x400 color monitor to get the best use of
this site.)
- Natural history will give
some basic background about the boreal forest and climate
change (as well as lots of links to other sites with information
on those subjects).
- Virtual tour will introduce
you (with lots of photos and audio clips) to the whats,
wheres, and hows of our research.
- Latest results will provide
periodic updates about what we've learned (so you might
want to check back every other month or so).
- Community visits describes
our visits to communities on the Seward Peninsula in 1998,
in which we presented an overview of our research similar
to the one you'll find on this site. These community visits
are the other part of our outreach program, and give us
a great chance to converse with people face-to-face about
our research and their experiences observing ecological
changes around their homes.
- Your observations is your
chance, if you happen to live near the areas in which
we work (central Alaska and the Seward Peninsula), to
make your own observations. We will post your observations
on the web site, and eventually you will be able to search
everyone's observations to find out what other people
in your community or neighboring communities have seen.
- Resources contains a list
of references, for both scientists and general readers,
about climate change, treeline, and the boreal forest.
It will also contain some hints for other scientists interested
in developing outreach projects in the communities in
which they work.
- Who we are will tell you
more about us.
- Get in touch tells you
how to contact us if you have questions or feedback about
this site.
 Using Audio on this
site
Listening to our audio
clips requires the Real Player, which can be downloaded from
this site (click on the button
above). Because these files are large, it may take several
minutes for them to load. There are two versions of the audio--
one is a larger and better sounding file, the other a smaller
one of lesser quality. You may want to try each version depending
on your connection. (We recommend 28.8 kps or greater). Let
us know if you have any other ideas for audio clips and how
it sounds!
Click here
for a directory to all audio files and text.
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