On campus today: Bunn to speak of experience with Polaris Project

Andy Bunn, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Western Washington University, participated this summer in the Polaris Project in the Siberian arctic. It was the second consecutive summer that Bunn took a pair of WWU undergraduates on the summer research project to study the effects of climate change on these ecologically vital and sensitive areas.

At noon today in College Hall Room 131, Bunn will present “The Polaris Project: A barge, twenty bunks, and a river at the top of the world,” discussing his work in the Siberian Arctic with undergraduates from eight American and Russian universities. The project’s guiding scientific theme is the transport and transformations of carbon and nutrients as they move along the Kolyma River from terrestrial uplands to the Arctic Ocean. This is a central scientific issue as scientists struggle to understand a rapidly changing Arctic. Bunn will discuss the involvement of WWU undergraduates during the past two summers and describe some of their scientific achievements and cultural experiences.

In 2009, undergraduates Kayla Henson of Spokane and Max Janicek of Golden, Colo., left for Siberia with Bunn on July 2 and were gone for the summer.

Last week:

Did you miss last week's international lecture? Edward Vajda, a professor with the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at WWU, presented "The Mongol Impact on World History." As part of celebrating Mongolia Day at WWU, Vajda discussed the spectacular consequences of the Mongol conquests begun in the 13th century by Chinggis Khan. The lecture explained how the medieval era ended and the modern world began in the wake of historys most successful empire builder. Watch the video on Western Today here.