Jamie Buchanon-Dunlop, who lives in the Arctic, participated in a Skype call with students from Portugal to discuss life in the Arctic. Students asked Jamie questions about adapting to civilization after returning home from the Arctic, sounds heard in the Arctic, housing, wildlife such as polar bears and their endangered status due to melting glaciers, recycling practices, and evidence of plastic in the Arctic environment. Jamie also discussed the factors contributing to climate change in the Arctic, including their ongoing study of glacier melting by collecting ice samples to analyze changes from year to year.

1. Skype in the Classroom with
Jamie Buchanon-Dunlop
ARCTIC LIVE!
17th March 2016, 12:30 p.m. GMT

2. JAMIE BUCHANON-DUNLOP, ARCTIC:

3. CARINA, PORTUGAL:

4. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• Yes. The first two days are a bit tough, but we
get used to it after a few times coming here.

5. JAMIE, ARCTIC:

6. MANUELA CORREIA, PORTUGAL:
• Is it difficult for you to adapt (to civilization) after returning home?

7. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• Yes. To the people, the smells, the sounds…

8. MIRIAM, PORTUGAL:

9. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• Mainly our steps on the snow, the wind...

10. FLÁVIO, PORTUGAL:

11. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• Yes, these houses are quite comfortable. They
belonged to Scandinavian settlers that came
here to work on the mines. But if we were on a
camp, then no, we couldn’t take our clothes off
because of the cold.

12. CARINA, PORTUGAL:

13. JAMIE:
• Do we have free time? (laugh)

14. ANA SOFIA, PORTUGAL:

15. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• Eskimos live in the Canadian Arctic. There are
several countries exploring the Arctic: Canada,
Norway, United Kingdom, India… to name just a
few.

16. MIRIAM, PORTUGAL:

17. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• No and it’s better it stays like that. We have to
take riffles whenever we go out to scare them.
But the other day, guess who came for lunch?

18. JAMIE, ARCTIC:

19. DIOGO, PORTUGAL:

20. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• Probably the first ones to be in danger would be
the marine animals. The polar bears are also in
danger because with the glacier melting they are
loosing their hunting platform.

21. MARIANA, PORTUGAL:

22. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• Yes, they return in spring like for instance the
grouse.

23. CARINA, PORTUGAL:

24. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• We separate the garbage. What can be
composted, stays. Everything else we take
home with us.

25. MIRIAM, PORTUGAL:

26. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• Not really plastic, physically, but evidence of
plastic, i.e. we found the components of plastic
in enzymes, in water, in animals...

27. MIRIAM, PORTUGAL:

28. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• It’s not only ONE thing; it’s a combination of factors,
like over fishing, global warming, pollution… Take for
example a piece a fruit that you buy on a supermarket.
It comes wrapped in plastic (which is completely
unnecessary because it’s a natural product). Because
of that, one tree had to die, rot in earth for thousands of
years until it’s transformed into oil, which is then
extracted and transformed again in plastic that we will
throw away as soon as we get home. Are we all mad?

29. CARINA, PORTUGAL:

30. JAMIE, ARCTIC:
• We are trying to understand how the glacier
melts down. We are collecting ice samples
inside the glacier. If you look at the satellite data
for sea ice extent, you will see that this Jan / Feb
has been the lowest on satellite record. The
glacier study will only reveal evidence of change
when we take another set of measurements next
year.

31. TIME TO SAY GOODBYE!

32. THE PROUD PORTUGUESE TEAM!

33. LEARN MORE
• http://oceans.digitalexplorer.com/events/arctic-live-2016/
• http://oceans.digitalexplorer.com/resources/