2007 International Science School 4 July 2007 Taronga's penguin colony had a temporary population boost today to raise awareness of the International Science School, which began in Sydney this week. The extra members were popular television scientist Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and Antarctic researcher Dr Rhian Salmon, who were introduced to the Zoo's Little Penguin colony and talked with keepers about the impact of climate change on the penguins and other polar species, such as Leopard Seals. Dr Karl, a regular speaker at the Professor Harry Messel International Science School (ISS), is raising awareness and prompting discu...

The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) has recently released the latest issue of the Australian Antarctic Magazine. The theme of this issue is the International Polar Year. AAD is participating in over 40 IPY projects and this issue of the magazine features some of these projects including the first marine research voyage for the AAD-coordinated Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML). You can download the Australian Antarctic Magazine, Issue 12, 2007 as a pdf here. For further information, please see the ...

climateXchange: How's your world? allows users to share stories (in text, photos and video) of how climate change has or might affect them in their local area, no matter where they are. We'd love for individuals, schools and community groups to contribute, as well as see the stories we already have on the site! We're hoping to receive submissions from all around the world. In fact, Questacon has made the site a part of International Polar Year, on behalf of all the science centres in the Asia Pacific region, as a part of the ASTC's Project IGLO. The project has an Asia - Pacific focus but submissions are invited from everywhere. It is prod...

From 1-14th July 2007, high-school students from across Australia and around the world will gather at The University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia for the 34th International Science School (ISS), EcoScience – two weeks of scientific lectures, activities and social events with a focus on the environment and ecological science, and attention on IPY and the polar regions. On Thursday July 5th, 2007 at 7.00pm Sydney time, the ISS presents a unique opportunity for high-school students to participate in a global webcast discussing polar science. Students, teachers and interested observers attending this 45 minute event hosted in Sydney, both at the ISS and o...

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...

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, ...

For 61 weeks thousands of people around the world will follow, on a daily basis via the internet, the exciting voyage of the three-masted sailing ship SEDNA as she travels to Antarctica.