Tongji University's "Climate Change and Global Governance" 2025 Polar Summer School is a key program initiated by the Graduate School and the National Academy of Engineer Excellence, in cooperation with the Foreign Affairs Office of the University, the Association for Science and Technology, the Guohao Academy and other related colleges at the university level.
Xie Xiaolu, a PhD student in Research Group 408, participated in this polar summer school research activity throughout. Together with researchers from various disciplines at Tongji, sheWe traveled to Iceland, Denmark and Greenland to conduct polar expeditions, research and international academic exchanges, and jointly conducted interdisciplinary research and experiments on "Field Multimodal Research on Polar Environmental Perception". This study is not only an in-depth exploration of human polar environment perception, but also an important empirical study of human ability to adapt to extreme environments.
I. Background and significance of the study
Against the background of increasing global climate change, the Arctic region, as the "amplifier" of climate change, has become the focus of attention of the international academic community for the impacts of its environmental changes on human activities.408 The research team grasped this research opportunity and made full use of the valuable opportunity of the polar expedition to design and implement an innovative research project, which lasted half a year of preparation. and implemented an innovative research project. The research aims to explore human perception of the polar environment, study the potential impact of the special polar environment on human physical and mental health, and through the collection of first-hand physiological and psychological data, accumulate valuable empirical evidence for the exploration of the polar environment in the cross-disciplinary fields of environmental psychology and human environment.
II. Research implementation process
The study lasted 14 days and spanned five cities in four countries and regions, including Shanghai, China; Copenhagen, Denmark; Nuuk, Greenland; and Reykjavik and Akureyri, Iceland. Physiological and psychological data were collected from a variety of scenarios, including high-latitude cities in the Arctic region and special natural landscape environments in the Arctic, with the aim of exploring the changes in the physiological and psychological state of human beings under special environmental conditions. This study faced many unprecedented challenges during its implementation:
1. Complex polar natural conditions and variable weather: The polar environment is characterized by low temperatures and variable weather all year round, and the phenomenon of the polar day and the special complexity of natural landscapes are a severe test for research equipment and the physical and psychological well-being of researchers;
2. Compact itinerary and great uncertainty in the expedition process: during the high-intensity itinerary of more than 10 hours per day, or even a day of hiking nearly 20 kilometers, researchers need to grasp the timing to complete the debugging of the equipment, reasonably arrange the time point of data collection and real-time recording work. Meanwhile, due to the great uncertainty of the study trip, the time management and teamwork of the experiment put forward very high requirements;
3. Restricted use of experimental equipment and limited time window: During the study, the environment changed frequently, and the residence time of each target scene was limited and could not be repeated, so the researchers had to complete the adjustment of the equipment and the guidance of the subjects in a very short period of time, in order to ensure the timeliness and accuracy of the data collection. This high-density, low-fault-tolerance acquisition mode poses a great challenge to the efficiency of experimental execution and the adaptability of researchers.
III. Research characteristics and innovations
This study is expected to show cutting edge and innovative value in several aspects:
1. Prospective field research: Polar environmental adaptation research is at the forefront of the international arena, and it is extremely difficult and rare for China to carry out empirical environmental research in a real polar environment, so the data obtained in the field have an important reference value;
2. Interdisciplinary integration and innovation: The study integrates multidisciplinary perspectives from architecture and urban planning, environmental sciences, psychology, physiology, anthropology, etc., and builds an interdisciplinary research program;
3. Breakthroughs in the application of technology in extreme environments: In view of the special polar environments, the research team and the technical support party have jointly developed a flexible and portable data collection program to solve the data collection problems.
IV. Acknowledgements
The successful completion of this study has been a labor of love for many organizations and individuals:
- Special thanks to the tutor, Prof. Xu Leiqing, for his guidance from the design to the implementation stage of the project, whose academic foresight and professional insights pointed out the direction for the research;
- We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the two instructors from Tongji University, Pan Drifeng and Zheng Xiong, for their professional guidance and advice during the polar expedition;
- We sincerely thank T.M. Song, B. Zhu, and other 408 team members for their joint participation in discussions and contributions during the preliminary experimental design and preparation stages;
- Heartfelt thanks to Beijing 恒挚 Technology Co. Ltd. for providing customized equipment and technical support;
- Finally, I would like to thank the students and counselors of this peer group for their active cooperation; it was the full cooperation of all of them that made this study a success.
V. Prospects for follow-up
This field study not only accumulates the first-hand information for conducting multimodal perception research in polar environments, which provides an empirical basis for health interventions in extreme environments, but also lays the foundation for the subsequent exploration of the effects of special environments on the restorative experience and physiological and psychological states of human beings. The 408th team will continue to analyze the collected data and promote the publication of related results.
Looking ahead, the 408 Research Group will continue to deepen its efforts in the field of healing environment and health, and plans to conduct in-depth research in the following directions:
1. Impact of extreme environments, such as polar regions, on the physical and mental health of humans;
2. Comparative study of different environmental characteristics on human physical and mental health;
3. Exploration of the application of environmental interventions in the field of physical and mental health of special populations (elderly, children), etc.
We believe that these studies will provide an important scientific basis for mankind's pursuit of a better life and well-being.
恒挚 Technology provided professional customized equipment support in this polar environment sensing multimodal field study, which solved the technical challenges for this study.
With the firm belief of "doing our part for the cause of scientific research", we provide efficient technical guidance for this research and promote the 408 team to carry out cutting-edge and innovative empirical research.
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