Iceland Field Work at Swami's

Clouds reminiscent of snow-capped mountains act as the setting for Alternative Breaks students as they learn the field techniques they will be using to study climate change in the Arctic. 

In mid-February, UC San Diego's Alternative Break Sustainability team visited Swami's State Beach with Scripps professor, Dr. Carolyn Kurle, to practice field techniques for the group's upcoming expedition to Iceland in August 2019. Alternative Breaks strives to give undergraduate students the opportunity to conduct service-learning projects relative to their major in locations around the world. As written in previous blogs, I will be traveling to Hólar, Iceland this August to conduct climate change research in marine and terrestrial environments as a team member.

UC San Diego students conduct a survey of the intertidal zone--an ecosystem greatly affected by temperature change--at Swami's State Beach.

While in Iceland, the team will be participating in several research projects. The plan is to conduct surveys of marine intertidal zones and mountainous terrestrial habitats to determine which species live in which zones and at what elevations. This could be important in our exploration of the effects of climate change in the Arctic because temperature changes at different elevations can affect the elevations organisms can survive at. We'll be doing a lot of hiking and observing!

One student examines a small sea hare found in one of the tide pools.

With little less than a month before the start of the trip, we have prepared by attending weekly meetings where we learned about the culture, history, and traditions of Iceland. We are also planning an outreach portion of the trip for when we return to bring awareness to the climate-related findings we may discover.

A large rock covered in mussels are observed to learn how animals in the intertidal zone protect themselves from drying-out during low tide.

If you would like to support our expedition and receive more updates, please like our team's Facebook page: "UC San Diego Iceland Alternative Break 2019".

Thanks for tuning in! More updates from Iceland to come!