On March 1st, 2007, students around the world are participating in ice experiments to celebrate the launch of the International Polar Year.

To show that you've taken part in some kind of IPY activity, launch a virtual balloon by following these simple instructions. You can visit the map with everyone's balloon markers on this site, or have it on your own website.

Instructions for adding your own marker on the map:

[Update: Be sure to use the "IPY" tag to add your balloon to the official map. (The test map used "ipylaunch2007".)]

Step 1: Get a free account with Tagzania.

Tagzania is a free location-tagging service. Once you have an account, you can mark locations on Google Maps and describe them, linking them to photos or web pages.

Register here. For your full name, I suggest using your school name and class. You don't need to submit an email address if you don't want to.

Step 2: Mark a location.

Log in and click on "post".

First, find the location you want to mark on the map. You can search for your town or go directly to the map. Navigating the map is very simple