Educational posters for the International Polar Year: First announcement, and call for partnerships

UNEP/GRID-Arendal

For further information, please go to: http://polar.grida.no/ipyposters

UNEP Key Polar Centre at UNEP/GRID-Arendal has received support from the Research Council of Norway (Forskningsradet) to prepare a set of posters for the International Polar Year (IPY). This project supports the education, outreach, and communication efforts of IPY. The posters will primarily present polar science and issues and secondarily create awareness of IPY and its research activities. The main objective is to try to answer the question: Why, and how, are the Polar Regions and polar research important to all people on Earth?

There will be five posters prepared, with high-school age students as the main target groups. Each poster will stand on its own but will be recognizable as part of the series through the common design template, and a design consistent with other international IPY outreach materials. All the posters will include illustrations and text highlighting the human dimension of the poster theme - photos with people and text showing how people are affected and why they should care. The lifespan of these products is not limited to the IPY period (March 2007 - March 2009) and the ambition is that these will be useful beyond this period.

The themes for the posters are:

* The Polar Regions - Characteristics of the Polar Regions, their location, and the location of the poles. The main maps will be topographic base maps, highlighting physical and political geography, infrastructure and populated places.

* Climate change - Global impacts and indications of what is happening in the Polar Regions, including scenarios for future climate change, impacts on animals and people, examples of adaptation, and what can we learn about past climates and the rate of change from studying ice cores.

* Polar people - The Arctic states, indigenous peoples and other peoples of the north, Arctic Council, legal regime (e.g. Antarctic Treaty System), economy, security issues, tourism.

* Science in the Polar Regions - Polar research and its importance for the rest of the world. Developments since scientists started visiting the poles, how does an expedition work (how do the field workers survive the extreme climate?), polar research from labs and institutions, historic sites, success stories (e.g. discovery of ozone hole), stations and the location of significant activities during the current IPY.?

* Biodiversity and natural resources of the Polar Regions - Polar flora and fauna and ecosystems, presented as one of the world's remaining wilderness regions. Displays will feature terrestrial and marine biology, polar biodiversity in a global context, unique/new/endangered species, and protected areas.

The posters will be supported by a companion web-site, with additional information, references, descriptions and links to relevant sources.

To ensure that the posters are of highest quality, they will be reviewed by teachers and scientists.

The goal is to have the posters ready for download and printing in fourth quarter 2007. This will be announced on this website, through the IPY International Programme Office and through other relevant channels.

Please note that the current funding does not include any printing and distribution of the posters (other than unrestricted digital files for download). We are currently investigating the possibility to have the posters available through a print-on-demand outlet, for smaller orders.

For larger batches of printed posters, the files will be available for download for printing at any local print shop, or facilitated through UNEP/GRID-Arendal (please inquire for a cost estimate).

For distribution and circulation, we would like to partner with national IPY and educational committees, secretariats and other organisations. In addition - we are very interested in seeing the posters and web-site translated and distributed in other languages. Please contact the project team at UNEP/GRID-Arendal for further discussion.

Inquiries may be directed to:
Hugo Ahlenius
UNEP/GRID-Arendal
+46-8-6747564
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