31 December 2025
From pre-k to grey, IARC’s Fresh Eyes on Ice (FEOI) project has involved students, educators, elders, pilots and even priests in the monitoring of ice conditions across Alaska. A top contributor is Father Thinh Van Tran, who serves in the Diocese of Fairbanks, in the towns of Nulato, Koyukuk, Galena, and Kaltag, deep in the interior of Alaska.
Rivers serve as highways for Alaskans living off of the road system. In winter, if the ice fails, people’s lives are at risk. In the fall, anticipation climbs when the river freezes and the water highway opens, providing a means of transportation again. Fr. Thinh described how the freezing of the Yukon River is an “exciting” event for Alaskans who rely on the frozen river for winter travel. “We are always waiting, waiting. When we see the cold, freezing cold, real cold temperatures, we're really happy with that because we know that it's really good freezing up and safe.”
In 2024, Fr. Thinh fell through a slough near the Yukon river. “I broke the ice, my snow machine couldn’t make it over the holes, then I fell into the water. There was a homestead two and a half miles from where I fell through, wolves and bears are still out there, so I took my axe and walked to that house. Then a guy at that house came out and helped me. I was so lucky.”
Since 2019, Fresh Eyes on Ice has worked to connect Arctic communities and build a modernized water and ice observation network. The program's goal is to support and sustain observations of lake and river ice to inform public safety, document responses to a changing climate and promote science education and participation across the state of Alaska. The program also plays a critical role in ground truthing what satellites see from the sky.
The FEOI team found that satellites didn’t catch critical information observed by community monitors 23% of the time. Satellite data are made more robust and trustworthy when they are verified by local observers.
The local monitoring efforts are standardized using GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) research protocols, providing standard research methods for students and community members to make observations. The use of GLOBE in Fresh Eyes on Ice is supported by the Arctic and Earth Signs project, a NASA-funded initiative focused on culturally responsive climate change education. It teaches youth science through the focus of climate change — a topic that will shape their future. Since 2019 over 4,000 participants have shared over 6,000 images of river and lake ice through the NASA GLOBE Observer app, the FEOI website and through social media. This information is sent directly to the National Weather Service in real-time to help with travel safety and flood warnings.
To sustain the relationship and continue data collection, FEOI scientists completed a 1,500 mile traverse by snow machines over the course of 2022-2024, about 500 miles each year. Going this length, and by this mode of transportation on the rivers, to visit communities demonstrated the depth of commitment of the Fresh Eyes on Ice project to providing ways to monitor ice across Alaska.