Joanne Heslop is back in Reno after spending a month in the Siberian Arctic, dining on moose meat and living on a 90-foot barge with fellow students and their scientist mentors conducting research on global climate change.

"It was really amazing," the University of Nevada, Reno sophomore said of her July voyage. "I have never experienced anything like it, and I probably never will again."

Heslop was one of 11 students chosen to work with seven researchers from the United States and Russia on the Polaris Project, funded by a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

The project is a collaborative effort by the Falmouth, Mass.-based Woods Hole Research Center, seven universities and colleges, and the Northeast Science Station in Cherskiy, Russia.

The project's mission is to increase research and education on the Arctic, a key region because of its sensitivity to warming temperatures and its influence over the Earth's climate patterns.

Heslop, 19, was nominated to join the 2009 Polaris Project by her professor, Sudeep Chandra.

An assistant professor of limnology, Chandra also took part in the project, marking his second year as a researcher on the team. This time, he worked with a Russian student studying carbon transfer in the lakes and rivers.

After resting earlier this month from a grueling return trip to Reno across 17 time zones, Heslop talked about one of the sights that surprised her most during the weeks she spent in the remote vastness of northeast Russia.

"We went to Duvannyi Yar along the Kolyma River where the permafrost is thawing and turning the hills into muddy slush, like the mud pots in Yellowstone National Park," she said. "It's very surrealistic, with trees clinging on for dear life."

Chandra said most Russian scientists don't believe current global warming is caused by humans, "but after visiting that site, there is no doubt the warming is human-induced. The amount of what is natural and what is human-caused still needs to be researched further."

Heslop worked with Nicolai Torgovkin, one of the two students from Russia, and Valentin Spektor, a Russian scientist, and their adviser, to collect more than 130 soil samples from the permafrost.

"We took 10 grams of soil and let that sit for 24 hours in a liter of distilled water to see what carbon, phosphate and nitrogen transfer into the water," said Heslop, an eco-hydrology and environmental studies major from Incline Village.

"The project was super interesting to me because no one had taken profiles before of the sediment and extracts of what can go into the lakes and rivers," she said.

The soil samples could indicate how much organic material might leach out of Russia's vast permafrost into rivers and thousands of lakes near the Arctic. Microbes then turn that organic material, which includes 10,000-year-old mammoth bones and dung, into carbon dioxide and methane gas that contribute to atmospheric warming.

Chandra said what makes the project unique is that it brings together students and researchers from different disciplines who take a holistic scientific approach to the Arctic.

Instead of focusing on a single aspect of the environment, they form teams that study the tundra, forests, inland waterways and the Arctic coast.

A three-year effort that began in 2007, the Polaris Project is scheduled to end in 2010 when its federal grant runs out.

Chandra said the principal investigators in the project will decide late this year whether to request an extension of the grant to continue their work.

Heslop said she plans to share her experience and findings with area science teachers and their classes.

"Being part of this project has made me more sure about what I want to do," she said. "Before I wanted to go into environmental public policy and public relations, but now I want to go into research science."