education & outreach
Announcing the launch of the AAOKH Endowment Fund
📢📢 We have big news!! Support AAOKH today to sustain your impact for generations! AAOKH launched the Alaska Arctic Observatory & Knowledge Hub Endowment Fund aimed at sustaining and strengthening Indigenous self-determination in Arctic research and Indigenous-led stewardship of the Alaska Arctic environment. You can support and help us build on a collaborative network of Inupiaq…
Winter 2026 Newsletter
We are excited to share our latest edition of AAOKH News! In this issue Bobby Schaeffer offers his observation and reflection of ex-typhoon Halong alongside Rick Thoman’s weather and climate highlights. We highlight results from graduate student Meaghan Conner research exploring spotted seal haulout behavior near Utqiaġvik and introduction to one of our new collaborations…
In the News: AAOKH observations provide stronger understanding of spotted seal behavior
Check out this blog post about AAOKH-affiliated UAF graduate student Maeghan Connor’s research using low-impact research tools to understand haul out behavior of spotted seals near Utqiaġvik. As part of her research, Maeghan reviewed environmental observations contributed by Utqiaġvik-based Iñupiat observers Billy Adams and Joe Leavitt. Their observations provided essential data on environmental conditions during…
Winter 2025 AAOKH newsletter
Film release! A new film about sea ice and whaling by Kim and Lloyd Pikok now online!
We’re thrilled to announce the online film release of ‘It’s All About the Happy People’, a film by Kimberly Kivvaq Pikok and Lloyd Pikok, Jr. about sea ice, whaling, and working together on Alaska’s Northern Coast in Utqiagvik, Alaska. The film was produced as part of Kimberly’s M.S. Thesis at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Learn…
Trails to the Whale: a new book documenting nearly 20 years of mapping sea ice trails near Utqiaġvik, Alaska
Each spring, Iñupiat hunters route and build trails across the shorefast sea ice off Utqiaġvik, Alaska to access hunting sites along the lead edge as they pursue the bowhead whale during its spring migration to the Beaufort Sea. Since 2007, an ongoing collaboration between whalers, scientists, and local organizations have worked together to map and…
Kimberly Kivvaq Pikok defends her M.S. Thesis
We are so proud of Kimberly Kivvaq Pikok, who defended her Master of Science Thesis in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Fairbanks Alaska on October 1, 2024. Kim delivered her defense titled “Centering community and joy through co-production: Tracking the seasonal changes of Utqiagvik’s spring whaling” from her Iñupiaq homelands in Utqiagvik, Alaska with…
Summer 2024 Newsletter
AAOKH Project Highlights 2024
We’ve had a fun and eventful couple of years since our last AAOKH project update, and have since refined our work and core functions in response to guidance from the AAOKH observers and steering group. Here’s a quick look at some of our stats, including number of observations and measurements collected as well as a…
