University of Alaska’s Girls on Ice Program to Expand in 2017

Inspiring Girls Expeditions, a unique 12-day experience for teenage girls operated through the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and the International Arctic Research Center, is expanding its offerings this summer. The organization will mount three, 12-day expeditions for girls ages 16 to 17. There is no cost to participants. Girls from around the world are eligible. The group’s website says that “we are looking for girls who have a genuine interest in science, art, critical thinking and the outdoors, and who wouldn’t normally have opportunities to experience those things outside of school.”

The group’s stated mission is to “give girls a feeling for the processes that create the natural world and provide an environment that fosters the critical thinking necessary to all scientific inquiry. The wilderness setting and single gender field team inspires young women’s interest in science and provides a challenging environment that increases their physical and intellectual self-confidence.”

The Girls on Ice program began in 1999 in Washington State. The Girls on Ice Alaska program was started in 2012 by a few graduate students from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The three expeditions planned for this summer are:

• Girls on Ice Alaska will explore a glacier in Alaska.
• Girls on Ice Cascades will explore Mount Baker, an ice-covered volcano in Washington State.
• Girls in Icy Fjords will explore Bear Glacier and the surrounding marine environment near Seward, Alaska. Girls on this expedition will kayak. This expedition is being offered for the first time in 2017.

Applications to take part in one of the three expeditions this summer will be accepted until January 31.