IPY 2007-2008

Objective:
To give an interdisciplinary introduction to environmental change in the Polar areas based upon past, present and future research being done in the Arctic during and after the IPY. The course will offer a unique field-training experience for internationally recruited students (undergraduate/early graduate) in a high-arctic environment, further on providing them with the latest IPY research data and information to be used for interdisciplinary project work during the field-school.

Content:
This course will focus on the impacts of climatic changes on the Polar regions, and students will accordingly get a general overview of topics including geology, glaciology, permafrost, oceanography, meteorology, biology, Polar social science and management/decision making in the Polar areas. The field-school will provide hands-on activities, field-work, group work and lectures covering the main topics, but also a deeper look into present polar research that was accomplished during IPY 2007-2009.

Students will work with group projects and thus get training to improve report writing and presentation skills. The projects will be based on data collected during fieldwork, the lectured scientific topics and the lectures regarding management systems and the legal framework applying to the Polar region. A unique lecture topic for this course is the inclusion of the effects of environmental changes on the human population, hence including some lectures on indigenous people in Polar areas.

In total the course provides facts and information on a variety of issues within the main concerns mentioned, and introduces students to field-work in the Arctic, methods in different disciplines, skills in how to make a good presentation and perform research outreach, and finally how to see Polar research in a broader perspective.

The course intends to utilize science data obtained as a part of The International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2009, and is a collaborative initiative between IPY Norway, UNIS, UArctic and the Association of Early Career Polar Scientists (APECS). In 2010 and 2011 The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has contributed financially to the field school.

For more information on the course an how to apply, please follow this link to the UNIS website.