[synthesizer fanfare] [ceremonial bass drum plays] (Aaron Doering) I was a K-12 teacher down in Rochester, Minnesota, and I was teaching geography, and I could not get my students motivated in a way that I wanted to.

I thought I was just a terrible teacher.

And at the same time, I was working for "National Geographic," and I thought, why don't we bring the real world into the classroom?

The technology was not that good, I mean, this was the late '90s.

We spent about 4 years trying to get money to do the 1st expedition, having the students experience the world in real time, tied to a curriculum.

From the early 2000s till now it has completely taken off.

(woman) "The Changing Earth: Crossing the Arctic," is a TPT partnership's co-production of the Learning Technologies Media Lab at the University of Minnesota, and Twin Cities PBS.

Additional funding has been provided by... We just finished an expedition from Arctic Bay to this beautiful community of Pond Inlet.

I'm Aaron Doering, I'm a professor of learning technologies at the University of Minnesota, and I'm also the director of the Learning Technologies Media Lab.

What we focus on is how we can use technology for innovation, how we can inspire the youth, the teachers, and the way that they use technology to experience the world that they never experienced before.

That's mainly through what I call adventure learning.

Adventure learning is where we not only write this curriculum, design these learning environments that have a focus on aesthetics and a focus on this motivation for the teachers and students, but then we more importantly go out there wherever "there" may be, and we are able to give the students a real-world experience as we're experiencing it firsthand.

[bass & drums play] Back to 2004 when we did our first online education program, we didn't know who was going to actually follow along and be part of this online adventure learning project as we spent over 6 months in the Arctic, and we pushed it out with "National Geographic," we pushed it out with all the media that we possibly could, trying to get K-12 students involved, and when we hit the very north end of Baffin Island at the end of the 6-month trip, we had over 3 million learners from around the world, students from around the world that are participating with us as we experience it in real time.

We plug in our computers and we...

It's not only the students in the lower latitudes, the students and the teachers within these Arctic communities were also using our education program.

And the reason they did that is because it was reinforcing their culture, it was reinforcing the tradition of knowledge that they, the elders, want passed down from generation to generation.

[speaking in their native language] (Aaron) We focused on a culture, we focused on environmental issue and now we even focus on a social issue.

We're making it real time from the field, wherever that might be.

It might be a trail in the middle of the Arctic, it might be in the middle of Africa in Ouagadougou, it might be in Nepal.

Students are experiencing it in real time as we are out there battling the conditions.

(Jeni Henrickson) So much energy, so much creativity, always thinking of like, different ways of presenting educational material.

We are focused on all different types of technology-enhanced learning, online learning, mobile learning, being prepared to innovate and handle something in the moment that you didn't anticipate.

(Chris Ripken) I'd applied for Aaron's teacher explorer program, I had applied for several years, I'd throw some hints in every now and then, hey, you need a, got any candidates for this year's teacher explorer?

And he said yeah, go ahead and apply.

(man on computer) I'll turn mine off now.

(Aaron) Okay, now we're going to turn ours off and turn it back on.

(Chris) It was hard to break in.

I think he became desperate by the time he was going to Northern Canada, and they couldn't find a teacher explorer, so they suckered me into it, and I was mostly a grunt that year.

I picked up dog poop and fed the dogs, and that's my glorious start.

(Aaron) These are the people that you're going to be relying on, strong individuals, mentally strong that also have amazing skills, video editing, how to read topographic maps, writing the trail reports that sync with the curriculum.

I'm just trying to keep everybody alive.

I mean, even in the last expedition, I spent at least 6 hours a day melting snow for water.

We're in a place where if there is an emergency, help is hours away, maybe days away, depending on the conditions that you're in.

(Aaron) It's not like you are going to Disney World where if you forgot your toothbrush, you can run to the local store.

If you can imagine showing up at the Minneapolis Airport with all our gear, the people behind the counter just shake their heads at us.

By the time we check in all our sleds, all our gear, all our food, and get on the plane, we're usually feeling pretty good.

To even get to Arctic Bay, which was our last expedition, we went from Minneapolis to Ottawa, and in Ottawa you usually have at least one night layover, and then from Ottawa you go up to Iqaluit, and then from there you have to decide where you're going to be going because many of the Inuit communities are not connected by plane.

From there we went up to Arctic Bay.

And so you're looking at a minimum of 3 days to get to many of these locations, and you have to be able to work together as a team, have a passion for education, with the goal of delivering an education program that has never been delivered like before, keeping warm, keeping yourself alive, having a positive attitude every single day.

[piano plays the introduction to "Ave Maria"] (woman) ♪ Ave Maria!

♪ [in German] ♪ Unbefleckt!

♪ (woman) I think it's important to care about the North.

It's changing, you know, the culture, the language, the tradition, the food, it's important to keep that for Inuit and we are proud to be Inuk, or Inuit and keeping that is great.

(Aaron) Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic are going to average probably between 300 and 1000 people within a community.

Their standard of living is very minimal.

They struggle to bring the dollars in so that they can actually buy groceries, get health care.

Suicide rates are extremely high, diabetes is at a high.

And so they struggle every single day in these communities that have been set up for them.

[man speaking] The federal government slaughtered all the dogs across the arctic so our people, our parents had no form of transportation for survival.

That's why they were forced as well to move to the same location.

I think this was part of the strategy that the federal government had, but it's an ongoing issue about dog slaughters.

They're still kind of denying, and it's just like something that I don't think it's going to go away until they admit that what they have done is wrong.

1960... government said move it to the Pond and let's starting in the school-- 1961.

(Geela Tagak) The governments came in, and they put them into these communities.

Kids now are expected to go to school.

We start to get the schooling in Pond, and from there we have to adjust to a new way of life that was totally different-- that happened so fast.

There's been a battle for many years, if we should listen to traditional knowledge as a lens through which we can view climate change, and for many years it wasn't respected.

And only recently people are looking at how things have changed, what the elders are seeing, and how we can, more importantly, how we can adapt to it.

Even looking back 12 years, I still remember walking into the co-op or the Northern Store and just being amazed by how much the food cost.

(Jeni Henrickson) The first time I ever went into a grocery store up there, I was shocked.

(Aaron Doering) Large pizza for example, and that would be $40 minimal.

(Jeni) A gallon of milk, $12.00.

(Chris Ripken) Things that we take for granted-- having fresh fruit, vegetables here, they're skyrocket prices there.

I'm a parent, and I have children like, and I just think about the number of gallons of milk I go through with a high school boy at home.

You're in a community where you have very limited job opportunities, very little income coming in, and yet the grocery prices are just ridiculous.

The issue's not only the cost, but then it is the quality of the food when it gets there, it's also getting it there.

(Jeni) Makes it very difficult to raise a family.

(Aaron) It was only 40 years ago that they were brought off the land into these communities.

They might have been a whaling community and now they're moved inland, and so now they have to learn a whole new custom, they might be caribou hunting, for example, as a result of climate change as a result of the changing temps, the changing environment; migration patterns have changed.

We were in Pond Inlet, and they would normally go out and hunt caribou, there were no caribou in the area.

[speaking a native language] People are expected to have a job now, and you need a job to survive.

If you're going to buy groceries or whatever, you need a job.

And you have to be in a community.

They are true communities; the people support each other, you're in an environment where if somebody wandered off and got lost, they could die.

People look out for each other there, they take care of each other.

(woman) It's not empty... [laughs] so we're not here for adventure, we live here.

Seal pups aren't cute, they're our food source.

The polar bears aren't majestic, they're a food source.

We have lowest graduation rates, we have high suicide rates, but we're optimistic about the future, especially when we are included in the decision making, in the development of decision making before the decision making.

(woman) They're making their traditional parkas.

You may have heard in other communities, they're losing their language, they're losing their culture, and in our community in Arctic Bay our culture and language is still very strong.

We still live it, we still hunt, we still eat country food, we still have elderly people that speak in Inuktitut, and we still have respect towards them.

I am from the community, I am Inuit and I love to see their accomplishments because it builds up their self-esteem.

I want my classroom to be a comfortable environment where if they're having a difficult time, like some of these girls don't have mothers, there's no guidance, no one to teach them, so I'd like to be here for them.

(Aaron) You know, the other thing people ask is, why don't we take these people in the North and move them down to Ottawa?

And first of all, I would question that because I would say, okay, would you like someone to pick you up from wherever you are and move you somewhere else, and then have to adapt to that type of culture in that location?

But also, the government wants them in these regions because it's security.

The arctic today is truly the last frontier.

It is an area that all governments are trying to get to.

We don't know exactly what is under the ground in many of these regions and for many of these areas, we know that there's going to be dollars that are going to come from it.

One of the Inuits came by, and I just started to talk to him and he keeps talking about all the polar bears and the one thing that we can't do is take a gun through the parks, so we have to look at alternative ways to defend ourselves.

We've been trying to get pepper spray, that is bear spray, everywhere, and they do not ship it by mail, and he had some, so he was kind enough to sell it to me, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Today before we leave on the expedition, we decided that we wanted to test our bear fence.

Chris got everything set up here to give it a test, but there's only one bad thing, is that the only way to test it is that you have to touch it, so I guess we have to figure out which team member here is going to be touching it, and I'm hoping it's not me.

Ahhhh!

(Chris) '09 was really a sensory overload for me.

A lot of it was just kind of glazed eyes figuring out what's going on there in a place that is so harsh and so challenging.

I've been there 3 times.

One of the things that really stuck with me the first year when we were in Pangnirtung, the locals were talking about a bridge that connected one side of the town to the other and they had had to rebuild this bridge 2 times in the last 10 years because the permafrost, which by its name means permanently frozen was no longer permanently frozen.

So when you hear people talk about infrastructure that they depend on, obviously it's impacting this community.

Aaron decided he wanted to change up the expeditions to not bring dogs along, and all of our travel would be on the ground, pulling our own gear in a sled or a pulk, p-u-l-k, somewhere probably around 200 pounds per person, maybe even more than that.

You're hooked up to a harness that kind of like a backpack over your shoulders and around your waist and uphill, downhill, across ice, across gravel, across snow.

(Aaron) We tried to be minimal on our weight, deliver an educational program in a way that we have it and also make the miles that we needed to make.

Figure out how much fuel you're going to use, this is fuel that you are using in your stove to dry your goods, to cook with, but you don't want to have too much because that's additional weight.

Obviously looking at food, how we can get enough calories in, and yes, we do eat many sticks of butter a day.

And then also, one thing people forget about is that we have all this technology.

With a bunch of this technology, we can't get around the weight of it, especially when you're traveling by ski, and with a sled behind you, you're pulling everything.

So in the sled is your tent, in the sled is your food, it's your fuel-- it's all the technology, it's everything that you need to survive out on that land.

And if you forget something, there's no going back.

(Jeni Henrickson) On this last trip, 2 of the Inuit men from the community actually pulled us out by qamutiik sled, so that's a big wooden sled out onto the land a little bit to get away from the ice where more polar bears might be.

The 4 of us on the team were in the sled, being pulled by the snowmobile and we hit a huge rock, and the sled fell apart.

And the guys who were taking us out there just, it didn't phase them at all, luckily nobody was hurt, and they just went and like, tied the whole sled up back together, and we were on our way again.

(Chris Ripken) You're physically adjusting to the temperature outside and your body temperature, you're taking layers on and off, 'cause sweat is the ultimate enemy.

Once you start getting wet, hypothermia can set in pretty rapidly, so you're constantly adjusting your layers.

I'm the only woman, but it's not a thing in, like, I never feel set apart because I'm a woman.

There are some challenges that are a little different, like going to the bathroom, [laughs] it's a little easier for the guys to take a pit stop along the trail than for me.

But in terms of just day-to-day stuff, it's not really a factor and for me, it's a really important thing that women are represented on the team because I have a daughter, and I want young girls to know that if they're inspired by that kind of outdoor adventure that they can do it too.

It's not something that's just for guys or that you have to be a certain strength or a certain size or whatever to do that, but I do train obviously.

Breakfast is fried bagels and sausage and oatmeal.

And then our evening meals last year consisted of mashed potatoes one night and macaroni and cheese the other nights.

(Aaron) You also have to build in storm days.

Right?

Because you never know what kind of weather you're going to be enduring, so I mean, I sat in a tent for 6 days at a time, and everyone thinks you're going to be in the tent playing cards with the heat on, but no, that's not what you do because you only have so much fuel, so you are in your sleeping bag, and you're probably reading a book and you're waiting for that storm to pass.

(Chris) All 4 of us slept in the same space, had 2 Coleman stoves running, it was plenty warm, sitting comfortably and doing our work and winding down.

(Aaron) Now we're cooking with gas.

The technology has gotten smaller, the batteries have gotten better.

Every single day we're out there, we're in the conditions, we are shooting video, we're capturing photos, we're doing all these interviews with the elders.

At night, we are sitting in the tent or wherever we are and we are editing, we're cutting this up, and we're seeing how it syncs with the curriculum so that teachers and the general public can experience it real time.

This past year is the first year that we've actually been able to do the solar like we wanted to and also use the iPhone and the latest technology in the way we have and the reason is, number 1, we are at such high latitude, we were just about 23 hours of sunlight.

The solar panels that are so much better than they used to be and the batteries, so if you look on the back of our sleds, I have the solar panel over it, then inside of that is the battery, then at night we take that battery in and we then can charge all our technology.

I was able to do one of my first interviews with the media where I actually held up my iPhone and did a Skype with them literally live from the arctic.

Yesterday morning, when it was complete whiteout, we had to make sure that we were skiing right in front of each other, because right now we are actually in polar bear country.

Aaron's leadership on these expeditions, I think it's worth noting that he is just a genuinely caring person, that he wants to empower his team to lead in their own way.

(Jeni Henrickson) It's so satisfying at the end of the day, when you've worked physically hard all day long, and you climb into your sleeping bag, it's just, it's a real sense of accomplishment.

That you've traveled however many miles that day, 10 miles, 19 miles, whatever, pulling this sled, you're living in a tent, you're melting snow for your water, it's just, it's a very cool, amazing thing, and it's so beautiful.

You have the people that are contributing the least to climate change being impacted by it most.

The elders many times have turned to me and said our lives are changing, and nobody cares.

And their contribution to it is minimal, if at all.

And that's also one of the goals of Adventure Learning is that they're able to see how these people are being impacted, see the actual land, see these landscapes, and hopefully see the importance of caring for it.

There are consequences, as we all know, there are always consequences when something abnormal, I'll say abnormal because it was something that was not planned, happens in a cycle that's been going on for many, many years.

There's a big change in the climate.

It's much warmer in the summer, and the season is getting earlier and earlier.

When I was younger, and it was normal the ice used to freeze late October, usually 3rd of October.

Now it freezes almost like end of November.

It's going to be ongoing, and it's going to be a change, and we have to adjust to what's happening to the climate.

(Jeni Henrickson) As the younger people lose some of the culture and the language, some of those skills and adaptability, some of those pieces are being lost.

If you lose what in the past has been taught by your elders about living on the land or surviving in that, or hunting or fishing, along with the whole climate change impact that's taking place, there's a risk that they might not be sustainable.

I'd say it's fear about family and screwing up.

He raised me, I learned stuff from him like be a mechanic.

He taught me to do the right thing, so I followed his advice-- stay in school, stay out of trouble, spend time with your parents, ask them questions.

(Aaron) It was only 40 years ago where they were actually living on the land.

In fact, what you'll see is that even on our expedition jackets, you see the syllabics, they're called, that's the language of, the written language of the Inuit, and so we have... (Chris Ripken) I've really become a disciple of Adventure Learning.

Students have the opportunity to create an adventure.

It's better to not have information just thrown at you, but to create and develop what you see as important.

So the students really enjoy that.

(Aaron) Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull!

[Aaron laughs] Yea!

Part of what I would love to see from these trips and stuff is not just kids learning about the world and being inspired to get involved in things, which is absolutely a huge piece of it, but personally, I really would like to see kids getting outside more and wanting to do these kinds of adventures on their own, and be physical and try new things and challenge themselves physically along with the education piece, yeah, going in their backyard and picking up bugs and exploring or going up to the boundary waters or yes, not necessarily undertaking an arctic expedition, but just, yeah, getting off their devices and going outdoors.

My favorite thing to do is right before everyone is hunkered in their sleeping bags and we just about have the stove off for the night, to go outside and just take in the vast landscape.

If you could imagine sitting and looking for miles of just ice and snow, then you had the reflection of the sun either setting or rising-- there's just nothing like it.

It's home to me, it truly is, it's a place that keeps calling me back.

I fall in love with the people, I am welcomed into the community.

We show them a lot of respect, and I'm not trying to tell them something.

What I want them is, for them to tell their story.

(woman) "The Changing Earth: Crossing the Arctic," is a TPT partnership's co-production of the Learning Technologies Media Lab at the University of Minnesota, and Twin Cities PBS.

Additional funding has been provided by... [synthesizer fanfare]