Programme

The village community building (Dorfsgemeinschaft /= mine shaft) comfortably accommodated all the summer school activities. On a regular day, lectures started at 8.30AM and lasted until lunch time (12.30AM). The afternoon was spent making exercises and doing a computer project. Twelve groups of three students each were assigned a computer project. By doing numerical experiments and fiddling with different numbers ('making a walk through parameter space'), students got a feeling for a certain glaciology-related process. Two random examples: one group investigated how old the ice near the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet could be at a given location; another group interpreted aerial photographs in order to constitute a consistent geomorphological history of a particular area. Presentations about the projects were given at the very last day.

The complete programme is available as a PDF.

In their spare-time, the participants enjoyed the different outdoor pursuits that the surroundings of Karthaus have to offer. Many went for a hike to the Kreuzspitze (2484m), a mountain top south of the village. The walk could be done in anything between 56'44" and two and a half hours.

On Wednesday, September 21st, all the students and staff went on an excursion into the Oetztaler Alps to see the Hintereisferner (through the fog) and to learn about the tragic fate of Oetzi the Ice Man.