ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A group of Albuquerque Public School students are taking a different approach to learning about weather. Middle schoolers are currently designing small wooden boats, that will offer them a window into the Arctic and the weather patterns there. Story continues below News: New Mexico’s struggling with an IV fluid shortage; officials think it might ease up Community: Tents, shopping carts, park use: Proposed rules could change how Albuquerque addresses the homeless crisis Trending: Mother seeks answers after son was killed in Albuquerque shooting "We're going to follow the boats because they're going to show us the currents and they're going to tell us the weather," said Turtle Haste, 6th grade science teacher. Sixth graders at Desert Ridge Middle School in northeast Albuquerque are taking their learning to the ice. "It gives us a chance to see the weather in real-time and not just our weather," said Haste. Haste is having each of her sixth-grade science classes participate in a national project called Float Boat. "They give us these little boats and we decorate them and then they put them on the Arctic ice with an atmospheric buoy and then we can track their flow," said Haste. Each boat has a number on it and is placed on the buoy in hopes of learning more about Arctic sea ice, ocean circulation, and temperatures. "Some of them have gone across the Arctic, some of them end up coming out by Alaska it just depends on which current they put it in," said Haste. They hope it will give students a new perspective. "It gives a chance to focus on the Arctic because we're in the desert in the middle of nowhere. They don't realize that a lot our weather is driven by what comes off the Pacific Ocean and some of the Pacific stuff is driven by the Arctic and the big polar drifts that come through that," said Haste. Haste's classes also participated last year. Those boats were deployed on the northern tip of Alaska. At last check, the boats are now drifting out towards the Greenland Sea and the North Atlantic. Haste hopes the project will get kids excited about science and show students it goes beyond just a person in a lab coat. "I wanna see them do things other than sit in a desk and I know I do better that way so why shouldn't they?" said Haste. The boats will be finished and shipped to the University of Washington Polar Science Center next week.