Science Symposium 2006

Date: September 4, 2006
Contact: Kris Fister, 907-683-9583

The 2006 Alaska Park Science Symposium with its theme of “Park Science in Central Alaska: Crossing Boundaries in a Changing Environment” is taking place on Tuesday through Thursday, September 12-14, at the Denali Visitor Center and Murie Science and Learning Center in Denali National Park and Preserve. The focus of the 2006 symposium is on presentations given by scientists from a variety of disciplines who conduct research in Denali, Wrangell-St. Elias, Yukon-Charley Rivers and the adjacent lands and waters of Central Alaska and the Western Yukon.

The symposium kicks off at 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday and concludes on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. Presentations, panel discussions and posters will cover a wide range of topics, including: monitoring a changing environment, geology of central Alaska, landscape ecology, vertebrate ecology, education, subsistence and management, profiles in history, anthropology, archeology and evaluating the visitor experience. The complete schedule of events is posted on the Symposium website at www.nps.gov/akso/Symposium.

Registration for the symposium and the field trips is available on the website. Interested participants can elect to attend all or portions of the symposium, as rates range from registration for the entire conference to rates for a single day. There are also special rates for students. During the conference an on-site registration of $10 per day is available for residents of local Central Alaska communities who wish to attend the presentations in the auditorium. A real-time live broadcast of the presentations will also be available on full resolution screens in the Murie Science and Learning Center free of charge. The sessions are also being streamed over the internet and can be accessed through the Symposium website.

This three-day symposium is the second in what is planned as a biennial series of scientific conferences focused on Alaska’s national parklands. As conference locations will be rotated to different areas of the state, it will be ten years before another conference is held in Denali.

Additional symposium information can be found on the website at www.nps.gov/akso/Symposium. General information on visiting the park is available on the park website at www.nps.gov/dena or by calling [phone] from 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. daily.

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