Michael Wing has taught at Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, California since 1998. He teaches science to students in the Revolution of Core Knowledge (ROCK) program, an academy within Drake High focused on college preparation and interdisciplinary projects. Recently, Dr. Wing and his students built an insulated mini-greenhouse at the University of California’s White Mountain Research Station, at an elevation of 12,500 feet. Not only is the greenhouse the highest school garden in America, it is the highest garden of any kind in the USA or Canada!

Ezra Zubrow is a professor of anthropology at the University of Buffalo and also holds academic positions at the University of Toronto and Cambridge University. He is also Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Geographic Information Analysis Laboratory, which he helped found. He has a diverse set of academic interests -arctic archaeology and anthropology, climate change, human ecology and demography, as well as a deep interest in social issues (heritage, disability, and literacy). For more than 30 years he has been doing field work in Northern Canada, Finland, and the rest of Scandinavia, and he originally pursued a career in science because one of his high school teachers persuaded him to participate in an ozone-tracking project.

The research team will conduct work near Yli-Ii, Finland, a town located about 30 miles northeast of Oulu. Yli-Ii is situated on the banks of the river Iijoki near an expansive Stone Age settlement area that researchers have been excavating since the 1960's.

In August, the researchers will travel to the community of Wemindji, which is located on the east coast of James Bay in northern Quebec, Canada. Wemindji is a relatively new settlement-in 1958, Cree families residing on an island called Old Factory moved 25 miles south to the current location.