International Polar Year (IPY), which extends from March 2007 through to March 2009, is a worldwide initiative involving thousands of scientists from over 60 countries and focuses on both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Although it is called

Cape Farewell Education aims to: facilitate learning about climate change and participation in the climate change debate among teachers and pupils in UK schools. give school students a voice in the climate change debate and to enable them to take what they have learnt and talked about back home into their communities and families spread enthusiasm and strategies for learning about climate change throughout UK schools. We have a number of resources available to teachers and pupils Life in the Water is a GSCE Science resource commissioned by Nuffield Curriculum Centre and developed with scientists at the National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton as part of the 21st centu...

Cape Farewell Education aims to: facilitate learning about climate change and participation in the climate change debate among teachers and pupils in UK schools. give school students a voice in the climate change debate and to enable them to take what they have learnt and talked about back home into their communities and families spread enthusiasm and strategies for learning about climate change throughout UK schools. We have a number of resources available to teachers and pupils Life in the Water is a GSCE Science resource commissioned by Nuffield Curriculum Centre and developed with scientists at the National Oceanographic Centre, Southampton as part of the 21st centu...

An essay has just been published in March issue of the InfoNorth section of the journal "Arctic", published by the Arctic Institute of North America, on the history of research at McCall Glacier, Alaska. McCall Glacier, located in the eastern Brooks Range of northern Alaska, has the longest and most complete history of scientific research of any glacier in the U.S. Arctic. Spanning the period from the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957-58 to the Fourth International Polar Year (IPY) in 2007-08, this research has resulted in perhaps the best record of recent climate change and its impacts in this region of the Arctic. Creation of this record played a major role in the lives ...

John Maurer, from the World Data Center for Glaciology in Boulder, is pleased to announce his new Atlas of the Cryosphere, providing interactive maps of major features of the frozen world. This should be a great tool for both scientists and educators. John writes: The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) "Atlas of the Cryosphere" Web site (http://nsidc.org/data/atlas) allows visitors to explore and dynamically map the Earth's frozen regions. Viewed from a polar perspective, the available scenes include snow cover, sea ice extent and concentration, glaciers, permafrost, and other critical components of the Earth's cryosphere. Users can zoom in to a specific region...

Gretel Ehrlich, award-winning author, has received a National Geographic Expeditions Grant for the International Polar Year 2007 during which she will make a circumpolar journey to talk with indigenous Arctic people at the top of the world about how their lives are being affected by the climate crisis. Ehrlich will travel from Arctic Alaska, across Nunavut, to NW Greenland, northwestern Russia, and Chukotka in NE Siberia, traveling by skin boat, fixed wing plane, helicopter, reindeer, and dogsled, gathering traditional and ecological knowledge from elders, hunters, and village people as they face the crisis of extinction of a culture and an entire ecosystem. Farthest North: THE END OF ICE will be a book, a magazine piece, a website, and a documentary film...

One of the best things about being a UNIS student is the opportunities one gets. Usually this involves knowing somebody who knows somebody who needs some help or a field assistant. That’s exactly how I got the chance to boat- and dog-sit on the east coast. Eric Brossier and France Pinzon du Sel, who have let their boat freeze in for the 3rd overwintering on Svalbard, went to Tromsø for a couple of weeks and needed someone to look after their beloved Vagabond, a 15.3m long boat designed for sailing in waters with ice. What luck for three Arctic-loving girls like Sanja (Finnish), Helle...

Celebrate the start of IPY by climbing the snow-covered mountains of the Polar Urals in the heart of the Russian Arctic! Date: 11-15 April, 2007 Application deadline: March, 9 Place: Salekhard, Yamal-Nenets district, Russia Event: IPY mountain climbing Activities: sport, cooking, tourist video and music contests, skiing, mountain climbing Who: students, scientists, educators, press, anyone involved in IPY or wishing to do so Danger: None Fun: loads! Age: 14-18 18-30 30- any Countries: any Funding: apply early and get full funding!* *What is covered by the travel grant: 1. Letter of invitation from Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs 2. Fl...

On March 1 2007, students at schools around the world marked the advent of International Polar year by conducting an ice experiment. They then told the IPY community and the world by pinning a virtual balloon onto a web-based map showing exactly where they were. It proved to be quite a success, with hundreds of schools contributing so far. IPY enthusiasts also joined in, turning the map into a riot of red balloons. See the whole map here. For technical reasons, browsers don't like it if you show too many balloons at one time, so only the most recent 200 balloons are shown. However, you can see all contributed posts directly by browsing the directory from ...

The International Polar Year has begun. What a week! With US and UK launches on the Monday stirring up media attention, followed by an event in Portugal on the Wednesday and over 20 more national events on the day itself, March 1st 2007, we definitely hit the news! While traveling to Paris with Nicola, to prepare for the international launch, the phone didn't stop ringing, both sides of the Channel Tunnel and even on the Paris subway system! I was contacted by journalists as diverse as New Zealand Radio, an In-flight magazine, BBC World Service, Vatican Radio, Al Jazeera English, an Italian science magazine, Chinese TV networks, and Scientific American to name a few. During the International Ceremony itself, my phone kept shaking, and afterwards, on a tour of Paris, I saw ...