Join the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) team on the redesigned Antarctica UAB website as we explore the spectacular marine life around Palmer Station on the western Antarctic Peninsula. As part of the celebration of the International Polar Year, we want to help showcase the diversity of international cooperation in polar research and validate its worth in the public's eye.

We invite you to visit the site, post comments/questions and join us as we bring the world to Antarctica during our NSF-funded expedition. The site combines traditional Web features with social networking Web sites like Digg.com and Del.icio.us. You can contribute your own knowledge, images and viewpoints as well as follow our team of researchers as they post pictures and blog from the site. We encourage you to join our International Polar Year group at http://flickr.com/groups/polaryear, and share your own photos.

We also invite students of all ages to ask questions about living and working in Antarctica. One of our favorite teachers, Dee Helmers, and her class of third-graders will be following and sharing their own Antarctic journey of discovery back in Alabama. Teachers are invited to join our Antarctica Classroom group on flickr, and share photos of their own classroom projects (please no identifiable photos of students).

We are excited to have this cutting-edge Web technology to share our work, and yours, with world. We look forward to reading your comments and seeing your photos.