 In the heart of Ecuador lies a unique geographical region where ice-capped mountains straddle the equator, rising far above the freezing line of 5,000 meters. Below these mountains are cities, towns, communities, home to millions of people who rely on these glaciers for their water supply. As the world's climate changes, what happens to the glaciers in Ecuador? What happens to the water supply? What happens to the people? These are the questions Gustavus Adolphus College professor and geographer Jeff Lafrenier undergraduate student researchers from Gustavus and colleagues from North and South America seek to answer. Recently, Lafrenier and a team of researchers went to collect data at about 5,000 meters or 16,000 feet on the volcanic mountain of Cayambe. With support from the National Science Foundation, the team included collaborators from the University of Minnesota, Escuela Polytechnica Nacional of Ecuador, Universidad Nacional de San Juan in Argentina, and Universidad Nacional de Córdoba also in Argentina. As he often does, Lafrenier brought along an undergraduate researcher from Gustavus, this time Brie Joel. He also brought along two more Gustavus colleagues, art professor Betsy Byers and undergraduate student artist Emily Jewizinski. Because Lafrenier has been leading teams to Cayambe every six months since 2014, there are seven years worth of data from the mountain. What that data shows is quite astonishing. We've had as much as seven to ten meters of ice loss just in the last six years on one of the glaciers we're working on. The amount of warming that we can expect to occur over the next 100 years if we do not change our global emissions pattern would raise the freezing line in Ecuador to about 5,800 meters. If that were to happen it would be very difficult for glaciers to exist on any mountain in this country except for maybe Vulcan Chimborazo which is 6,300 meters and only then at the very top. They have seen both decrease in the amount of water available for irrigation and changing precipitation patterns and certainly agriculture there has become less and less viable for many people. And a significant proportion of the population there who used to be small land holding farmers has had to move out and move to the cities of the country Keto, Guaiquil or even immigrate out of the country including to the United States because they just can't make their livelihoods there with farming anymore. To understand what is happening on Cayambe Jeff and his team are using an integrated data model approach to research changes in water and the ecology. They are using drones to make 3d renderings that accurately depict changes in the glacial surface over time. With their Argentinian colleagues they're using ground penetrating radar to learn even more about the ice. They're analyzing the natural chemistry of the water to evaluate changes in its flow and composition. They're also installing new weather stations repairing and collecting data from existing ones and mapping and sampling plants. The scientist data tells the story to help make that story more accessible the scientists have invited the artists art professor Betsy Byers and her undergraduate art collaborator Emily Jewazinski are along to gather their own source material for an interactive project that will illustrate the change in glacier in a new way and for new audiences. The ultimate goal of the projects is to try to take their data and the complexity of their data and make it understandable to more people. We found that the closer experience that you can get somebody to trigger a memory or a bodily experience the more impact that that artwork will have on them. So that's really driving our work is trying to get at that that physical experience that human experience of the natural world and how we translate it through our senses. We were trying to gather information about sound particularly sounds such as when the scientists were drilling in the ice and we were walking in the snow the experience of the rain on the snow versus the rocks. We were also looking for the way that your eyes saw light and how light was moving through ice. How do things smell? I think coming into this Betsy and I didn't exactly know what would come out of a pair of artists coming on a trip with a team of scientists but being here and having conversations with them and seeing their field work I feel like we have a much deeper understanding and that's going to help us communicate what's going on. It's this mix of you know physical geography, human geography, art and science and it's really neat to kind of have that collaboration in combination because I think it really speaks to the interdisciplinary nature you know that is an approach to every single issue and so right now we're looking at this issue of a melting glacier but how do we bring that to a larger society? How do we help people connect with that? We're trying to tell a story about what we are finding here and artists are fantastic storytellers. Usually when we're thinking about collecting data we have this particular mindset of objective data collection and how do we make sure that we account for uncertainties and things like that. So seeing how they understand the environment that we're experiencing how they understand or perceive the questions that we're trying to ask really is a nice way for us to turn back around and know that we are trying to communicate something to a broader audience. I think most of us do science not just to get particular results but because we get excited about it and there's an emotional aesthetic aspect of just being that stuff's cool and that's what we want to we want to be able to figure out ways to share why we get so excited and are willing to go spend a week up running around on the ice under miserable conditions. It's not just because this data is important we get something more out of it and trying to find ways to communicate that is what I think and even reflecting on that is we're having the the Otis along has been really helpful. For the undergraduate students who are along this trip is a transformative learning experience. They have been working side by side with the others taking hands-on roles with an interdisciplinary team of experts at the top of their fields while at the top of the world. I love being out on the glacier I think that's extremely exciting it's something that I've never had a chance to do before this is my first kind of extended period of field work and it's in an area that I've recently come to really appreciate and love and so the geospatial aspect was something that I started exploring this past few semesters at Gustavus and to be able to put that into practice and have a chance to do that in the field with all of these other components as well has been extremely exciting every day is an adventure and that's definitely exciting for me. When I think about the people of Cayambe I'm thinking about how much they made me aware of the element particularly of water but just of sustenance and thinking about how much work do we have to do in our daily lives to take care of our families and to take care of ourselves as a mother I drove by and observed many other mothers with their children in their back hand digging in fields working hard to sustain their community and their family and their children and I'm thinking about that as I come back here and turn on my faucet in St. Peter Minnesota and hand my child a glass of water. Climate change is something that's occurring maybe not in the blink of an eye but when you've been coming back to the same spot you know for five years for ten years and are able to see that that change that's occurring it kind of hits home the point of like this is a big deal and it's you know this may seem like a small piece of a larger puzzle but it's definitely important work that's being done. Ecuador is a really good example of a place where there are immediate and direct climate change impacts happening that people are feeling right now and these people aren't the ones who have been responsible for emitting the greenhouse gases that have led us to the global climate change we're experiencing. They are on the front end of climate change impacts yet they didn't get necessarily the quality of life benefits that other people in the western world including the United States received while we were emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. This is just one small example of many many people who are starting to face the challenges of climate change and are not going to be able to solve these problems on their own.