Valued at more than $15,000, this once-in-a-lifetime Arctic classroom experience is a rare opportunity to study the threatened ice bears up close in their natural habitat with other like-minded students from around the world. Under the guidance of renowned scientists, educators, wildlife photographers, and filmmakers, Leadership Campers will observe polar bears in the wild, and learn about climate change firsthand from experts while aboard the Tundra Buggy mobile research station. After five days in the Arctic, Leadership Campers return to their communities as Arctic Ambassadors empowered to make a difference in the race to save the polar bear, whose habitat is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Since its inception in 2008, the Gault Energy-PBI Alliance has sent three Fairfield County teens to Leadership Camp.

“From telling their Arctic stories at the Stepping Stones Museum for Children, to visiting YMCA and town Parks and Recreation Department summer camps across Fairfield County, to meeting with Girl Scout troops eager to earn their ‘climate change’ patches, to reaching out to families at community events, our Arctic Ambassadors have educated more than 2,000 children in the last two years,” said Sam Gault, president of Gault, Inc. “We’re extremely proud of what they have accomplished and look forward to welcoming our fourth Arctic Ambassador to this team of extraordinary teen leaders this fall.”

According to PBI, the Arctic summer-sea ice cover has both shrunk and thinned by 45 percent, losing 70 percent of its former volume since the 1970s. In fact, scientists predict the summer-sea ice could disappear completely in less than 30 years.