- 1School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom (prior-jonesm@cardiff.ac.uk)
- 2School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
- 3Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom
- 4Centre d'étude de la neige / CNRM / Météo France - CNRS, Grenoble, France
- 5British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK
- 6Independent diversity & inclusion consultant
- 7Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- 8School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
- 9School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom
Fieldwork in polar and cryospheric research involves working as a team in a hazardous environment. We developed a residential field course, “CryoSkills”, which ran in Norway in April 2024, with 20 early-career scientists. One of the course objectives was to familiarise the participants with the reality of working in a cold, snow-covered environment, and for the instructor team to model and promote good practice in cryospheric fieldwork. In this presentation we will describe our approach to fieldwork and how, though a mixture of formal teaching, mentoring, and groupwork, we successfully conveyed this approach to our early-career participants. Extensive preparation and planning, including a pilot course, meant that the instructor team were able to create a supportive environment and model good practice in teamwork to the participants.
After the course, several participants who went on to do fieldwork later in the season and told us how much their learning on the course had helped them deal with difficult situations, and we will share some of these experiences.
How to cite: Prior-Jones, M., Bagshaw, E., Craw, L., Doyle, S., Filhol, S., Fisher, E., Frater, D., Hawkins, J., van der Laan, L., Smith, E. C., and Young, T. J.: Sharing good cryospheric fieldwork practice with the next generation of scientists, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11157, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11157, 2025.
