SEATTLE (AP) — With the planet’s polar regions changing faster than ever before in human history, the University of Washington is launching a new initiative to boost research in the Arctic and prepare students for a world where melting ice is opening new opportunities - and posing new threats.

Under the Future of Ice program, the university will hire eight scientists and faculty members and offer the country’s first Arctic studies minor outside of Alaska.

The inaugural course, which starts this month, filled up in less than two weeks.

“The student interest has been phenomenal,”...