Student Comic Winner: The Impact of Global Warming

Sometimes, the key to understanding a complex scientific concept comes from a whimsical doodle. Artist Karen Romano Young uses comics to tell the story of a team of scientists from Maine's Bigelow Lab as they travel to Palmer Station in Antarctica. Her #AntarcticLog followed the team as they traveled to Antarctica aboard the massive ship the Laurence M. Gould. From March 25 to May 17 in 2018 Karen and her team lived at a small research station on an island on the West Antarctic Peninsula, the part of Antarctica that stretches Northward toward the tip of South America. Here scientists study everything from algae forests to humpback whales. The comics explore what it means to be a researcher in this part of the world, from the types of creatures seen living atop the ice floes, to deployment of intricate sensors that measure microscopic algae.

Part of Karen’s mission is to inspire the next generation to care about science. Here we present the winner of a recent science communication comics contest. Georgia Fisher is the winner of the ten to the eleven-year-old bracket. Her comic illustrates some of the effects of climate change, including coral bleaching and rising sea levels.