About the Program

Providing participants the opportunity to expand their knowledge of Earth’s past through analysis of scientific records in ice cores collected by the NSF Ice Drilling Program.

2025 School of Ice

Applications are available now!

WHEN?
  • June 23-27, 2025 
WHERE?
  • Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

To be added to receive an email notification when the application becomes available or if you have questions, contact Louise Huffman.

 

Participants will be provided airfare and travel support, four nights’ lodging, meals, and class materials.

Purpose of the Course:
Our nation faces serious challenges when attracting young people to science and its related careers. To address these issues, School of Ice partners have created a rigorous professional development workshop for college faculty and high school teachers who teach advanced science courses. This program will provide cutting-edge scientific evidence derived from ice cores and provide resources necessary to bring this exciting inquiry into new and existing science classes on their campuses.

The experiential nature of this course will build background knowledge of cutting-edge research and empower participants to communicate authentic scientific research practices, ice core data, and results to their students.

Program Commitments
Within two weeks of course completion, participants will be expected to:

  • Write a summary of how they have professionally benefited from participation in this course.

Within a semester of course completion, participants will be expected to:

  • Write a Plan of Action to begin or expand science exploration and research opportunities for their undergraduate students.
  • Demonstrate how they will integrate workshop information and science curriculum within new or existing geoscience courses by creating two written curriculum pieces dealing with the topic accompanied by an explanation of how the curriculum will be used.

Program Evaluation

The School of Ice uses an outside evaluator to conduct evaluations of our courses. A combination of participant pre- and post-surveys for each workshop is employed. In 2017 and 2024, past SOI participants were invited to take part in virtual or phone interviews to identify how the course over time has impacted both the educators and their teaching, as well as their students.  Please contact Louise Huffman (Louise.T.Huffman@Dartmouth.edu) to see any of the past evaluations.

 

  • 2024 Evaluation Report – School of Ice
  • 2023 School of Ice Evaluation
  • 2022 School of Ice Summary Evaluation
  • 2021 School of Ice External Evaluation
  • Virtual School of Ice 2020 Evaluation
  • School of Ice 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Evaluations
  • School of Ice Follow-Up Evaluation-measuring long term impacts of the course
Scientists, engineers, logistics specialists, and educators that make the School of Ice possible

Meet the School of Ice Experts

TESTIMONIALS

  • If it was not a workshop like this, I would not feel comfortable teaching my advanced Climatology class and offer the labs for the class full of hands-on exercises conveniently available for the students. Every minute of my time was worth this workshop!

    Rose Ozbay
    School of Ice Participant
  • The School of Ice has been a wonderfully rewarding teacher experience. I walked away with an appreciation for all of the work that not only goes into the efforts of research scientists about the evidence of climate change, but how to really teach it using best practices.

    Matt Thomas
    Science Teacher, Alameda International High School
  • I teach earth science and environmental science to non-science majors. Sometimes it is difficult to make them understand the concepts of science. The lab activities presented in the workshop helped to formalize such concepts. From the workshop I gained knowledge about past climate, and proxy data analysis through the wonderful presentations of Prof. Erich Osterberg, Bess Koffman, Meredith Kelly and Bob Howley.

    Paramita Sen
    School of Ice Participant
  • The workshop was successful in terms of education, diversity, collaboration, and knowledge exchangeable. It provided me ways and methods to demonstrate scientific facts over climate change using ice cores and paleodate. This workshop gave opportunities to all participants to learn and pass the knowledge to recent and future generation about climate change.

    Khaldoun Ahmad, Ph.D.
    Environmental Science Instructor Biogeochemistry, Hydro-biogeochemistry, Paleoenvironment Liberal Arts & Sciences Saint Cloud Technical & Community College

TESTIMONIALS

  • If it was not a workshop like this, I would not feel comfortable teaching my advanced Climatology class and offer the labs for the class full of hands-on exercises conveniently available for the students. Every minute of my time was worth this workshop!

    Rose Ozbay
    School of Ice Participant
  • The School of Ice has been a wonderfully rewarding teacher experience. I walked away with an appreciation for all of the work that not only goes into the efforts of research scientists about the evidence of climate change, but how to really teach it using best practices.

    Matt Thomas
    Science Teacher, Alameda International High School
  • I teach earth science and environmental science to non-science majors. Sometimes it is difficult to make them understand the concepts of science. The lab activities presented in the workshop helped to formalize such concepts. From the workshop I gained knowledge about past climate, and proxy data analysis through the wonderful presentations of Prof. Erich Osterberg, Bess Koffman, Meredith Kelly and Bob Howley.

    Paramita Sen
    School of Ice Participant
  • The workshop was successful in terms of education, diversity, collaboration, and knowledge exchangeable. It provided me ways and methods to demonstrate scientific facts over climate change using ice cores and paleodate. This workshop gave opportunities to all participants to learn and pass the knowledge to recent and future generation about climate change.

    Khaldoun Ahmad, Ph.D.
    Environmental Science Instructor Biogeochemistry, Hydro-biogeochemistry, Paleoenvironment Liberal Arts & Sciences Saint Cloud Technical & Community College