ALASKA — At Anan Wildlife Observatory near Wrangell, Alaska, pink salmon fill the creek each summer, returning to their ancestral spawning grounds after a year and a half at sea. Here, both black and brown bears wade into the creek and perch on rocks to pluck fish from the water, tolerating one another in a rare interspecies truce brought on by sheer abundance.

The annual salmon buffet has made this southeast Alaska creek a popular destination for more than bears. Human visitors, eager to catch a glimpse of the increasingly rotund bruins, eagles and other wildlife as they embark on a journey by boat or float plane to reach the remote site. Up to 60 people a day purchase permits to visit—a cap set to avoid impacts to the wildlife they’ve come to see. 

This past summer, the number of people able to appreciate the dynamic banquet jumped dramatically when two bear viewing livecams began broadcasting on Explore.org, a nonprofit live nature cam network. More than 200,000 people tuned in from every state and around the globe between late July, when the cameras went live, and September, when the cameras were turned off for the season.

Explore.org Director of New Media Candice Rusch reported that fans quickly took to the Tongass National Forest cams, featured at the top of the organization’s website. “Right away, people were investigating the bear book to identify individual bears, asking questions and falling in love with the beautiful canyon views.” 

An extraordinary alliance
The groundwork for broadcasting those views—installing cameras, solar panels and satellite internet—took seven months of intense planning and ingenuity, which Rusch says is typical for Explore.org’s off-grid locations. What was out of the ordinary about Anan, however, was the team researching and installing the system—comprised of students from Wrangell High School. 

The students were part of the T3 Alliance (Teaching Through Technology), an organization that engages rural Alaska students with science, technology, engineering and mathematics in their communities. An agreement with the Forest Service, funded through the Great American Outdoors Act, covered the costs of the camera system components, design and installation, including small stipends for the students and their mentors working on the project.

Hands-on learning, real world impact
Each of the fourteen students that helped with setting up the site had a domain of responsibility, with Andrei Bardin-Siekawitch, a sophomore at Wrangell High School, taking on the power system. He created an energy budget to determine how many solar panels would be needed to power the cameras and satellite internet. During installation, it would be up to him to wire together the batteries and related components on the observation deck.

District Ranger Houser had the opportunity to spend a day there with the group--as part of the Forest Service, and as a parent of one of the students. She recalled working alongside Bardin-Siekawitch to wire together the batteries, distributor, inverter and other components of the power system. “We had a few iterations on our battery project. As we experimented, we asked questions, consulted Google and YouTube, and used the T3 growth mindset to ultimately wire the batteries successfully.” 

“That kind of hands-on learning is what T3 excels in,” reflected Bardin-Siekawitch. “My favorite part was the sheer amount of problem-solving we did throughout this project, bouncing ideas off each other every time a problem came up. We had a lot of fun along the way!” He said that the opportunity has been life-changing—sparking his interest in electricity and confirming engineering as a career path. 

Associate Director and Community Engagement Lead of T3 Alaska Brian Reggiani says that the collaborations have provided a scaffolding for learning with benefits that extend to the broader community and the forest itself. “All the missions we have been able to complete for the Forest Service have provided awesome learning moments for our students. With each mission we are able to level up our skills and help with bigger and bigger projects. I think it is an incredible way to build the next generation of stewards of the Tongass.”
     
Read about the new viewing platform with a spiral staircase at Anan Wildlife Observatory in Seeing Eye to Eye with Alaskan Bears, and a public use cabin at the site in Anan Bay rebuild marks new chapter in Alaska cabins project.