Submitted by Karl Torstein Hetland Project manager K12, IPY Norway "Thank you for some fantastic days at Svalbard" "The teacher workshop at Svalbard was very inspiring" "This was a fantastic workshop - I feel filled with energy and experience - wonderful colleagues (Danish participant)" This was some of the feedback we got from the teacher workshop at Svalbard, which 22 Norwegian and 5 Danish teachers attended for a week in August. There were not many hours to be alone during the week, but it was always daylight so it was not too busy. The workshop started in Oslo with polar history at the Fram museum and the ...

Danish Polar Center has established an IPY service office in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland's main international and domestic traffic hub and the gateway to the Ice Sheet. The office is located in KISS, the researchers' hotel, and will be staffed until the end of August. The IPY service is targetted at the many researchers coming to Greenland during IPY. When you arrive at the airport, look for the IPY banner and the IPY logo * and you'll find the IPY service staff. The IPY service in Kangerlussuaq is a cooperative effort between Danish Polar Center, Kangerlussuaq International Science Support (KISS) and Greenland Home Rule's Office for Research Coordination. As part of the service an "IPY SERVICE Manual" is available for download. The manual includes material...

On March 1 2007, students at schools around the world marked the advent of International Polar year by conducting an ice experiment. They then told the IPY community and the world by pinning a virtual balloon onto a web-based map showing exactly where they were. It proved to be quite a success, with hundreds of schools contributing so far. IPY enthusiasts also joined in, turning the map into a riot of red balloons. See the whole map here. For technical reasons, browsers don't like it if you show too many balloons at one time, so only the most recent 200 balloons are shown. However, you can see all contributed posts directly by browsing the directory from ...

The International Polar Year has begun. What a week! With US and UK launches on the Monday stirring up media attention, followed by an event in Portugal on the Wednesday and over 20 more national events on the day itself, March 1st 2007, we definitely hit the news! While traveling to Paris with Nicola, to prepare for the international launch, the phone didn't stop ringing, both sides of the Channel Tunnel and even on the Paris subway system! I was contacted by journalists as diverse as New Zealand Radio, an In-flight magazine, BBC World Service, Vatican Radio, Al Jazeera English, an Italian science magazine, Chinese TV networks, and Scientific American to name a few. During the International Ceremony itself, my phone kept shaking, and afterwards, on a tour of Paris, I saw ...

Thank-you to everyone who was involved with launch events, who launched virtual balloons, who launched real balloons (see the Swedish launch web-cast!), those behind the scenes, and those on stage. IPY Celebrations around the world on March 1st, and throughout this week, have been a huge success. You can watch those you missed on the Arctic Portal, or still launch your virtual balloon now, and throughout IPY, to recognise the importance of the polar regions to the whole planet. Here is a map showing balloons that have been launched around the world (you can zoom in on where you live or zoom out to see the world map!): ...

IPY launch events around the world can be viewed live at the Arctic Portal. We also encourage everyone to launch a virtual balloon and show how many people around the world care about the polar regions and are interested in IPY. Everyone is welcome to join in, young or old, polar or tropical! The Official Opening Ceremony takes place in Paris at 11am local time. That is UTC 10:00, or, 1am in Anchorage, 5am in New York, 7am in Santiago, 3.30pm in Calcutta, 7pm in Tokyo, and 9pm in Sydney. You can watch it live or after the event on the web at the Arctic Portal, where you will also find webcasts of other national launch events from around th...

For the official launch in Paris at Palais de la d'couverte on 1st of March, the french postal administration, in connection with the french branch of the International Association for Polar Philately, "A.I.Phi.Pol", will open a special postal station with a special cancellation and postal stationary (pre-stamped envelope) especially designed for this historic day. The special postal station will be open in the morning for the conference attenders and in the afternoon for the public. The "A.I.Phi.Pol" have also arranged to have a small quantity of booklets available containing IPY stamps from the eight arctic countries. The booklets will be available on the opening day at the face value. To reserve a booklet, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it "

Watch IPY launch events on-line at the Arctic Portal and elsewhere. Throughout this week, over twenty nations around the world are celebrating the launch of the International Polar Year 2007-2008. New Zealand, Indigenous People, Argentina, and the Ukraine have already held extremely successful events. This week, Monday will see Press and Participants gathering in London, Strasbourg, and Washington DC, and Portugal will be holding their kick-off event on Wednesday. Thursday is the big day, with the Global Launch occurring in Paris at 1000 UTC (1100 local Central European Time) and national celebrations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Greenland, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Norway, ...

The Arctic Portal provides a comprehensive gateway to the Arctic on the internet, increases co-operation between both public and private parties across the Arctic and grants exposure to Arctic related information.

The Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN) is hosting its kick-off meeting at the Abisko Scientific Research Station, Sweden on the 22nd to 24th of February 2007. PYRN (www.pyrn.org) is an international effort under the patronage of the International Permafrost Association (IPA) to bring young permafrost researchers together during the international polar year and beyond. The first phase of the PYRN project saw more than 300 young researchers from 31 countries join the network. It rapidly became the largest young researcher-driven network in the field of cryospheric science. PYRN offers, news, information and support to its members. It has sent 17 monthly newsletters since its start in 2005, maint...