School hosting field seminar for Hokkaido University

Hokkaido University students and their professors, representatives from
UAF International Programs and Initiatives and Miho Morimoto
and Dave Valentine gather on the first day of the field seminar.

Eight students and two professors from Hokkaido University arrived Monday for the second edition of the Alaska Natural Resources Sustainability Field Seminar hosted by SNRE and UAF International Programs and Initiatives.

Miho Morimoto and Professor Dave Valentine are again coordinating the seminar and a busy schedule of field tours and lectures relevant to the natural resources theme Aug. 8-17. Conveniently, the group will fit in a 12-passenger van to be piloted by Miho, a postdoctoral researcher.

Valentine said the seminar will be similar to last year’s, with many of the same lecturers, but the students will visit the permafrost tunnel near Fox this time and will spend a night in Trapper Creek after visiting Denali National Park.

Valentine said that he got some good feedback from the students and professors who participated in the seminar last year. “Hokkaido wanted to do it again,” he said.

Seminar topics will include sustainability, the boreal forest, permafrost, the trans-Alaska pipeline, fisheries, permafrost, historical gold mining, Native corporations, timber use, wildland fire, forest and wildlife management, Alaska livestock and agriculture, and rocket research. Lectures will be given by UAF professors and representatives from agencies, businesses and a Native corporation. Lecturers from the School of Natural Resources and Extension will include Jan Dawe, Valentine, Morimoto, Glenn Juday, Milan Shipka, Mingchu Zhang and Art Nash.

The group will travel to the pipeline, a gold dredge, the Poker Flat Research Range, the permafrost tunnel, Denali National Park, Creamer's Field, Superior Pellets, the Fairbanks Experiment Farm, Georgeson Botanical Garden, the Large Animal Research Station, the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest, Northland Wood Products and other locations.

As before, students participating in the seminar reflect a variety of disciplines, including forest sciences, medicine and engineering. The two Hokkaido professors, Masahide Kaeriyama and Xiao Lan, are participating for the second year. Morimoto also has Hokkaido connections. She is from Japan and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Hokkaido University before earning a doctorate from the School of Natural Resources and Extension.