On Tuesday, April 8, middle- and high-school students from Fairbanks, Shageluk and Wasilla, Alaska, will join with students from the other end of the globe, in Ushuaia, Argentina, in a live two-hour videoconference that is part of International Polar Year (IPY) activities at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). The students will respond to a focus question about the important seasonal indicators in their area (such as budburst, leaves changing colors, or river/lake freeze-up or break-up), and how those indicators may be impacted by climate change. They will then discuss their answers with each other and with several arctic and antarctic scientists who will be on hand. This videoconference, similar to one that was held a year ago on the UAF campus, is part of an Internat...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 4, 2008 Children near both poles will have a chance to talk to each other and scientists about changes they are seeing in their own environments and how people are adapting to those changes during an International Polar Year pole-to-pole videoconference Tuesday, April 8, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Through the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment program, known as GLOBE, students in Fairbanks, Shageluk and Wasilla, Alaska will exchange their research ideas and interact with students from Ushuaia, Argentina, as well as with scientists from Alaska, Colorado and Argentina. The exchange is part of the IPY GLOBE Seasons and Biomes project, which trains K-12 teachers and students ...

River delta's rise puts Arctic's future in flux VANCOUVER, April 4, 2008 Globe and Mail In the Mackenzie River Delta, where there are about 45,000 lakes separated by thin arms of land, researchers have found that global warming is causing water-level increases three times greater than expected. The study, Effects of Global Change on Canada's Mackenzie River Delta, is part of an International Polar Year investigation into changes in Arctic freshwater systems. Experimenting with scientific fun Queens University Journal Bottles of strangely named ch...

"Learning From the Polar Past," the second issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine, provides content knowledge, lesson plans, and resources about fossils, polar dinosaurs, geologic time, paleontology, and archaeology. Students learn to examine evidence and make inferences in science activities. Through reading and writing, students practice making inferences, use context clues to define vocabulary, and construct evidence-based claims. The second issue includes compelling images from both the Arctic and Antarctica as well as engaging stories and high-quality content. Some of the issue's highlights are: ...