We started Sunday with a team ritual: reading poems aloud. Some were fun, some serious, all genuine. Afterward came “call-outs,” where team members recognized each other’s efforts, followed by a weather update—crucial for planning fieldwork in the Arctic. These routines, carried out without fuss, reflected how much intention goes into maintaining a strong team culture.
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) provides a standardized instrumentation and observational platform with the capability to measure the structure, composition, processes, and dynamics of the biosphere from local to continental scales. NEON is the first continental-scale facility designed to enable ecological research on the causes of and responses to environmental change. It provides this capability through in situ sensing capabilities, biological measurements, airborne remote sensing, and data products delivered through a cyberinfrastructure backbone that ensures community access to these resources. NEON supports a large and diverse group of stakeholders – ecologists, educators, policy makers, and engineers – who use the NEON infrastructure and data in their research, management and training programs. Data provided by NEON contributes to collaborative, innovative, multi-disciplinary approaches to educate undergraduate and graduate students. Education and training initiatives include workshops, seminars, tutorials, and data carpentry courses. NEON recruits individuals from underserved and minority communities, through a program that capitalizes on the distributed nature of NEON and the expertise at localized ecological domains to promote broader community engagement.
Participants Involved in This Project
Will Hendricks | Researcher Fellow
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) | Fairbanks, AK
Elsa Herraez Hernandez | Educator Fellow: 2025-2026
Berkshire Hills Regional School District | Great Barrington, MA
Abbey VandenBerg | Researcher Fellow
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) | Fairbanks, AK
From the Blog
I’ve spent the past six days in Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska, embedded with a group of young scientists working for NEON -the National Ecological Observatory Network. NEON is a large-scale project funded by the NSF that collects long-term, open-access ecological data across the U.S. to track changes in ecosystems over time. And here, at the northernmost
Made possible with funding by the U.S. National Science Foundation Award #2221990. The information contained here is those of the author(s) and does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
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