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Displaying items by tag: Educators
Wednesday, 31 January 2007 06:32
How does your town/school compare with a town/school in the arctic?
Follow the below ideas or print off this Compare your Towns flyer.
Directions: Compare your town / school to a town / school in the Arctic in the Canadian, Northwest Territories using the data and images available in the Windows Around the World program.
To do the comparison complete the table below, for the Arctic town/school you may use either the Angik School located in Paulatuk (located above the tree line in the tundra) or Moose Kerr School (located in the Mackenzie River Delta within the Arctic tree line). If you live in the Arctic, how does your town / school compare to one of these other t...
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Tuesday, 30 January 2007 19:42
Permafrost fiction
The thought of writing a science fiction story for the Polaris anthology filled me with trepidation. Science wasn’t exactly my strongest subject in high school. Then I looked at the research that scientists were doing for the IPY, some of which was happening in my own back yard, the Yukon.
So I did some research of my own – on the Internet, in science magazines and in books – and I kept coming back to permafrost. In the Yukon, you have to pay attention to how permafrost is going to affect your plans, whether it’s building a house or putting in a highway. The history of the Alaska Highway is rife with stories of how engineers ignored permafrost at thei...
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Monday, 29 January 2007 23:44
IPY Brochure Available to Download
Good news for IPY and for our Danish colleagues! The Finance Committee of the Danish Parliament has approved additional funding for IPY. The following is an unofficial translation of the official notes associated with the approval of the IPY funding: 'In 2007-2009 the International Polar Year (IPY) will take place and on this background 30,000,000 DKK will be allocated in 2007 and in 2008 in order to accentuate the IPY opportunity. The funds will supplement the current grants for Arctic research and logistics support and will be issued by the Commission for Scientific Reseach in Greenland and the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, respectively.' For more information, visit the ...
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News And Announcements
Monday, 29 January 2007 23:41
IPY Brochure
You can track the Polarstern research vessel in a number of ways as it traverses Antarctic waters. You can view the raw coordinate data here on www.sailwx.info's tracking map. You can also track it in Google Earth by downloading this constantly updated file from the SCAR MarBIN portal. The file in turn accesses position data from this page on the Polar View website, which al...
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Sunday, 28 January 2007 01:00
Ice Fest
Boulder, Colorado is home to some of the world's leading polar and climate experts, and so to help celebrate the beginning of the International Polar Year we'll be holding Ice Fest, which may, if successful, become an annual event. This year it will be held March 8-11th on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus, with "Arts & Sciences Day "on Thursday March 8th showcasing phenomenal photograph from both polar regions, a special keynote talk on Friday followed by "An Evening with Michael Brown," an award-winning Boulder filmmaker, "Family Day" on Saturday t...
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Sunday, 28 January 2007 02:32
Beaked Whales spotted around the South Shetlands
Cetacean surveys by helicopter turned out to be a particularly efficient technique to identify the poorly known beaked whales and thus extend our knowledge of their geographical distribution in Antarctica.
Have you ever heard of “Ziphiids”? This term refers to the cousins of dolphins which belong to the most mysterious family of all cetaceans. This family, also known as beaked whales, is one of the biggest among cetaceans. In the Southern Ocean, their size varies from five meters for the smallest to twice as long for the Arnoux’s Beaked Whale. Despite their enormous size, these 20 species are still very poorly known. Some of them have never been seen alive, and most of the information about their biology has been gained by investigating stranded specimens. Beaked whale...
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Saturday, 27 January 2007 02:21
Larsen ice shelf left few scars
Everyone knows that the bulk of an iceberg is underwater, so what happens when they hit the sea floor? Icebergs that scrape over the sea floor or get stuck on underwater elevations cause enormous disturbance events. Entire faunal assemblages are wiped out during such events. Scraping icebergs leave behind a diverse landscape, usually marked by “bulldozed” areas as well as ploughed sediments or piles of rock. This new, unoccupied habitat is quickly seized by mobile pioneer species. Often, patchworks of different recolonization stages form and thus enhance species diversity.
Initially, scientists assumed that the seafloor fauna of the Larsen A and B area would have been strongly affected by iceberg scouring. When an ice shelf collapses, many smaller icebergs form in a shor...
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Friday, 26 January 2007 06:35
Super powered animals are cool
Hi! I'm L. Shelby, author of the story "Frozen Witness" which is a part of the POLARIS anthology of science fiction stories that came out as a part of the International Polar Year celebration. I've been asked to demonstrate how science fiction allowed me to explore polar science. To me that feels a little backward, I usually think of this story as an example of how polar science allowed me to explore science fiction.
It doesn't usually surprise people to learn that I do science research before writing science fiction stories. But it often surprises people to know that I do just as much research when I'm writing fantasy. I...
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Thursday, 25 January 2007 17:21
Arctic Journey Dance Performance
Although perhaps only a few of you can actually attend, I hope you share my enthusiasm for IPY events such as the Arctic Journey dance performance at Grand Valley State University in early February. "Arctic Journey" relates an Inuit story about a walrus hunting tragedy and includes Inuit Drum Dancing, Inuit Throat Singing and performances by dancers from the Grand Rapids (Michigan) area. This event celebrates Western Michigan's kick-off to International Polar Year. Grand Valley State University serves as host for one of IPY's Education projects: IPY a...
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Thursday, 25 January 2007 07:58
MATE International ROV Competition
The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center and the Marine Technology Society’s ROV Committee organize an annual International ROV Competition for middle school through university-level students worldwide. In recognition of IPY, the 2007 competition is challenging students to design and build ROVs (“underwater robots”) for science, exploration, and industry operations in polar environments. On this blog you will learn more about the 2007 international event, which is taking place June 22-24 at Memorial University and the Institute for Ocean Technology in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. You will also hear from so...
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