Dear reader! This blog it is written by five students at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS); we hope that you will enjoy these tales from the high Arctic. We will start with a short introduction about everyone: Tine Larsen Gender: Female Study: Master in Geology Home: Geilo, Norway Home University: University of Tromsø Interests: Skiing, kiting, paddling... Life motto: "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, whisky in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn put and screaming ~WOO HOO what a ride!!" Matilda Hallerstig Gender: Femal...

The IPY Youth Steering Committee is pleased to announce the launch of a ipyyouth.org, new youth website for the IPY. The site is an interactive online community where young people can learn more about the Polar Regions, the IPY and how to get involved. By joining this online community you can contribute to discussion forums on Polar Issues, submit artworks and photos to a Polar Gallery, view Podcasts by our members and submit your own, start projects with other members, and get involved in the YSC’s activities! Text: Mel...

January 2007 The Smithsonian Institution announces a polar science symposium in early May 2007, as one of the inaugural U.S. contributions to celebrate the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. Smithsonian at the Poles: Contributions to International Polar Year Science is being convened by Smithsonian Under Secretary for Science David L. Evans. The symposium will present research findings by Smithsonian scholars and their collaborators from Artic and Antarctic research, with particular attention to changes in polar systems past, present and future, and their global impact. The symposium will carry on a tradition of polar science that began nearly 150 years ago and resulted in some of the worlds foremost collections and archives of Arctic an...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

European Union International Polar Year - Arctic Research Opportunities at the European Centre for Arctic Environmental Research (Ny-

What was life like on Norway's Svalbard Islands during the 1960s? Not as desolate as you might expect. But then again, this YouTube video may just have been rampant propaganda: As for the soundtrack, that was made by Frost, an aptly named Norwegian electro-pop outfit that wasn't even born at the time the above video was made. (...

Nobody appreciates the impact of Arctic change more than the people who live there. A unique feature of this IPY is a focus on understanding how people observe and respond to change. People are not passive observers but integral parts of the Arctic system. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC recently ended an exhibition that put a human face on the warming of the Arctic. A new web site incorporates images and information from that exhibition -- Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely. The National Snow and Ice Data Center also distributes a multimedia product, ...