Summary: Near the top of Canada's Mount Logan, temperatures stay below freezing, allowing snow and ice to accumulate for thousands of years. As a result, it was the ideal location for National Geographic Explorer Alison Criscitiello and her team of scientists to embark on an expedition in 2022 to retrieve a record-breaking ice core that could serve as a record for Earth's changing climate, as part of the Perpetual Planet Expeditions partnership between National Geographic Society and Rolex. Criscitiello's journey, illustrated within the learning resources provided here, is the subject of the National Geographic Society documentary film, "For Winter."

Location: Mount Logan, Canada

Purpose: Data collected from high alpine mountain systems can provide insights into how the climate has changed over time. The deeper the ice core sample, the more difficult it is to extract. However, this hard-to-reach ice can reveal previously unknown information about Earth's past climate to prepare us for the impacts of climate change in the future.

Data Collected:

• A 1,072 foot ice core, the deepest non-polar ice core ever retrieved from a mountaintop
• Weather data received from an automatic weather station, installed by the expedition team on the mountain

Questions:

• Ask your students to try to imagine what 1,072 feet looks like. Then open the MapMaker map linked above and select "3D View" from the toolbar to visualize the topography. Click on the data points on the map to find the location of the ice core drill site. Next use the measure tool to investigate how far into the mountain the team was able to drill.
• Open the StoryMap linked above and watch the film trailer. Have students identify something in the natural world, just as Criscitiello did with the ice core, that might tell a story. What could they do to learn more about the history of this element of nature?