300 Little Boats, One Big Arctic Journey: Tracking Student Art Across the Ice

By Vår Dundas, Researcher, Stiftelsen Nansen Senter for Miljø og Fjernmåling,

Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Norway

Just like last summer (2024), Float Your Boat joined the HiAOOS expedition into the Arctic Ocean aboard KV Svalbard. This outreach initiative, led by the International Arctic Buoy Programme, brings the Arctic to life for schoolchildren through a simple idea: we talk about the Arctic Ocean while kids decorate their very own wooden boats.

Planning for this year’s edition began in May 2025, when we contacted Thomas, a carpenter at Nernes Snekkeri & Bygg in Bergen. “The boats are for primary school kids,” we told him, “so please make sure there are no splinters.” He soon delivered 300 perfectly smooth, small wooden boats.

In June, we visited schools across Bergen. On the first day alone, we met 100 curious 5th and 6th graders. We explored questions like: How deep is the ocean? Where exactly is the Arctic Ocean? And how does Nansen’s 1890s Arctic journey compare to the one their boats might take today? One student asked, “Could my boat end up in the Mediterranean?”. That sparked a lively discussion about ocean currents, eddies, and waves, and why it’s unlikely—but not impossible—that a boat might drift to warmer waters far south.

In the following days, we visited the children’s hospital and a school on Askøy, engaging with students from 2nd to 6th grade. We talked about sea ice variability, Nansen’s three-year ice drift, Arctic wildlife, and the physics of ice and ocean.

Altogether, nearly 200 children in Bergen decorated boats this spring while learning about the Arctic Ocean. A huge thank you to the teachers who welcomed us so warmly and embraced the project with enthusiasm. 

In early August 2025, during the HiAOOS field campaign, we placed all the boats onto the sea ice, surrounding two ice buoys from the International Arctic Buoy Programme. We also received a shipment of boats from U.S. and Canada schools, which we deployed alongside those from Bergen. The buoys are now drifting with the ice, transmitting real-time data on position, sea level pressure, and surface air temperature—creating a valuable dataset of drift trajectories and atmospheric conditions.

The 2025 HiAOOS field campaign included scientists, engineers, and students on the KV Svalbard icebreaker. It was a collaborative effort to advance Arctic Ocean observation technologies. The expedition brought together experts from Norway, Poland, Germany, and the USA, alongside master’s students from the University of Bergen and the University of Rhode Island. The mission: to strengthen the foundation for year-round monitoring of a rapidly changing Arctic.

As the ice drifts through the Arctic, students and teachers can track their boats at floatboat.org. This initiative keeps the conversation about the ocean alive throughout the school year, as the boats and buoys journey through one of the most remote and fascinating regions on Earth.

Boats Deployed were from:

• St. Bruno Parish and School, Dousman, Wisconsin

• Hillbrook School, Los Gatos, California

• Faribault High School, Faribault, Minnesota

• South Vermillion High School, Clinton, Indiana

• St. Joseph School, Nelson, British Columbia, Canada

• NERSC programs in Bergen, Norway