ED11A-0103
Exploring Earth's Polar Regions Online at Windows to the Universe
Earth's Polar Regions (www.windows.ucar.edu/polar.html), a new section of the Windows to the Universe Web site, made its debut in March 2007, at the start of International Polar Year. With this new online resource we seek to communicate information about the science, the history and cultures of the Arctic and Antarctic to students, teachers, and the general public. The Web section includes brief articles about diverse aspects of the science of polar regions including the cryosphere, climate change, geography, oceans, magnetic poles, the atmosphere, and ecology. Polar science topics link to related areas of the broader Web site as well. Other articles tell the stories of our human connections to the polar regions including the history of polar exploration and human cultures. Online "Postcards from the Field" allow contributing scientists to share their polar research with a broader audience. We continue to build content, games, puzzles, and interactives to complement and expand the existing resources. A new section about the poles of other planets is also in development. A growing collection of classroom activities which allow students to explore aspects of the polar regions is provided for K-12 educators. An image gallery of photographs from the polar regions and links to IPY and related educational programs provide additional resources for educators. We have been disseminating information about the Earth's Polar Regions Web resources to educators via National Science Teacher Association workshops, the Windows to the Universe educator newsletter, various education Listservs, and Climate Discovery courses offered through NCAR Online Education. Windows to the Universe (www.windows.ucar.edu), a long-standing and widely-used Web resource (with over 20 million user sessions in the past 12 months), provides extensive information about the Earth and space sciences at three levels - beginner, intermediate, and advanced - to serve the needs of upper elementary through lower undergraduate students as well as the general public. These resources are available in both English and Spanish. Funding for polar content development is provided by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Science Foundation, and NASA IPY. http://www.windows.ucar.edu/polar.html
ED11A-0104
Polarjugend.de - an IPY Education and Outreach Project of the German Youth Steering Committee
The online network polarjugend.de is a project being initiated by the German Youth Steering Committee for the International Polar Year (GYSC) in cooperation with the International Youth Steering Committe and the IPY Education and Outreach. Two goals integral to the YSC are firstly the networking of young polar researchers across all disciplines early in their careers to enable collaboration, and secondly for this network to be involved in outreach to other youth. To meet these two aims with a project coordinated by the youth for the youth, the German YSC has created an online platform in German to facilitate the collaboration among high-school students, teachers and young polar researchers in and outside the classroom. The GYSC coordinates presentations and discussions at high schools throughout Germany by networking teachers and researchers and providing educational material and resources. The GYSC makes available brief online presentations and articles for further use in the classroom. An event calendar provides teachers and students with subject-relevant information on the Polar Regions. An online discussion forum considers student questions dealing with polar issues. The project aims at reducing the language barrier of polar education and outreach activities for a German- speaking audience by providing polar-related information and further means of communication specifically in German. The project is designed to continue beyond the timeline of the IPY, and the GYSC is confident that it will exert a lasting effect on German high-school education and the integration and discussion of Polar issues into the curriculum.
ED11A-0105
A Legacy for IPY: The Global Snowflake Network (GSN) Together With Art and Ice, and Music and Ice; Unique new Features for Science Education.
The Global Snowflake Network (GSN) is a program that is simultaneously a science program and an education program. When the validation of the procedures (collection and identification of the type of snowflakes and the associated satellite image archive, as a serial record of a storm), is achieved, then the program becomes a scientific resource. This latter is the ultimate goal. That's why NASA has launched the Global Snowflake Network, a massive project that aims to involve the general public to "collect and classify" falling snowflakes. The data will be compiled into a massive database, along with satellite images, that will help climatologists and others who study climate-related phenomena gain a better understanding of wintry meteorology as they track various snowstorms around the globe. A great deal of information about the atmosphere dynamics and cloud microphysics can be derived from the serial collection and identification of the types of snow crystals and the degree of riming of the snow crystals during the progress of a snow storm. Forecasting winter weather depends in part on cloud physics, which deals with precipitation type, and if it happens to be snow- the crystal type, size, and density of the snowflake population. The History of Winter website will host the evolving snow and ice features for the IPY. Type "Global Snowflake Network" into the search engine (such as GOOGLE) and you will receive a demonstration of the operation of the preliminary GSN by the Indigenous community. The expeditions FINNMARK2007 and the POLAR Husky GoNorth 2007 expedition took the complement of Thermochrons with multimedia instructions for the Global Snowflake Network. This approach demonstrates the continuous Thermochron monitoring of expedition temperature and provides otherwise inaccessible snowflake information to NASA and others interested in the Polar region snow. In addition, reindeer herder and Ph.D. student, Inger Marie G. Eira, will incorporate the HOW, GSN thermochrons, snow pit observations, and snowflake identification protocols into her Ph.D. dissertation on snow changes, and reindeer pastures in Northern Norway. SCIENTISTS DISCOVER - ARTISTS INTERPRET - TOGETHER WE CAN OPEN THE EYES OF THE WORLD. This theme of the "Polar Artists "can be reached from the web search. Water ice is one of the most widespread, intriguing, and familiar compounds on the planet, in the solar system, and beyond. On the planet, it falls as snow, forms lacy deposits on winter windows, creates skating surfaces on lakes, gracefully drapes rock cliffs, packs thickly on the polar oceans, and lays even thicker on the ice caps blanketing Greenland and Antarctica. Of the 11 forms of water ice so far identified, only the form found on Earth can provide a "Frizion". Communicating this is part of Polar Artists outreach. We are working with Terje Isungset, from Norway, who creates musical instruments from ice. We will demonstrate how ART and Ice and Music and Ice are presented. In addition to video presentations appearing on YOUTUBE, we are preparing additional live performances of this work. http://education.gsfc.nasa.gov/how
ED11A-0106
The LASP Climate Change Compendium: Looking at Climate Change at the Poles for IPY
Understanding our climate, how it's changing, and how it is impacting the poles is an important gateway to understanding global warming. The International Polar Year (2007-2008) allows us an opportunity to focus on climate change at the poles and look at how it may impact the rest of the globe. The Climate Change Compendium compiles 40 outstanding inquiry-based lessons and activities from a number of sources for grades 3-12. Students learn about the greenhouse effect, natural and human climate records, albedos, feedback loops, and how these factors are affecting the Earth's polar regions. Teachers using the compendium are provided with background, image banks, extension exercises, and evaluation tools. The Climate Change Compendium is the third in the LASP compendium series, which includes Space Weather and Outer Planets. http://lasp.colorado.edu/education
ED11A-0107
ESSEA K-4 Online Course: Polar Connections
The Earth System Science Education Alliance (ESSEA) is a National Science Foundation-supported program implemented by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) to improve the quality of geoscience instruction for pre-service, middle, and high school teachers. ESSEA increases teachers' access to quality materials, standards-based instructional methods and content knowledge. Started in 2000 and based on a trio of online courses (for elementary, middle, and high school teachers), the courses have been used by 40 faculty at 20 institutions educating over 1,700 teachers in Earth system science. Program evaluation of original course participants indicated that the courses had significant impact on teachers Earth system content knowledge and beliefs about teaching and learning. Seventeen of the original participating institutions have continued to use the courses and many have developed new programs that incorporate the courses in Earth science education opportunities for teachers. Today the ESSEA program lists nearly 40 colleges and universities as participants. The original K-4 course and modules have been revised to include topics and resources focusing on the International Polar Year. The new K-4 Land, Living Things, Water and Air modules contain inquiry-based investigations exploring our polar regions. Each module lists a set of essential questions that guide teachers and their students as they build content knowledge. The course structure requires teachers to work individually and in teams to build content knowledge and pedagogical understanding of how their students learn. This group investigation approach and a "Teacher as Researcher" theme promote reflection and collaboration to develop criteria for effective concept building. By exploring the characteristics of polar landscapes, atmosphere, and polar life, teachers and their students will develop new understandings about the interactions and dependencies of the Earth spheres and our polar regions. Changes in climate, air, water, and land quality and animal and plant populations make the news everyday. The K-4 course will help teachers inform rather than frighten their students as they learn more about the characteristics and importance of our polar regions. One goal of IPY 2007-2008 is to increase the awareness, understanding and interest of school-age children in polar conditions and research. The inclusion of polar topics in the K-4 course contributes to the achievement of that goal. http://esseacourses.strategies.org/
ED11A-0108
ARCUS Internet Media Archive (IMA): A Window into the Arctic - An Online Resource For Education and Outreach
The ARCUS Internet Media Archive (IMA) is a collection of photos, graphics, videos, and presentations about the Arctic and Antarctic that are shared through the Internet. It provides the polar research community and the public at large with a centralized location where images and video pertaining to polar research can be browsed and retrieved for a variety of uses. The IMA currently contains almost 6,500 publicly accessible photos, including 4,000 photos from the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating (TREC) program, an educational research experience in which K-12 teachers participate in arctic research as a pathway to improving science education. The IMA is also the future home of all electronic media from the NSF funded PolarTREC program, a continuation of TREC that now takes place in both the Arctic and Antarctic. The IMA includes 450 video files, 270 audio files, nearly 100 graphics and logos, 28 presentations, and approximately 10,000 additional resources that are being prepared for public access. The contents of this archive are organized by file type, photographer's name, event, or by organization, with each photo or file accompanied by information on content, contributor source, and usage requirements. All the files are keyworded and all information, including file name and description, is completely searchable. ARCUS plans to continue to improve and expand the IMA with a particular focus on providing graphics depicting key arctic research results and findings as well as edited video archives of relevant scientific community meetings. To submit files or for more information and to view the ARCUS Internet Media Archive, please go to: http://media.arcus.org or email photo@arcus.org. http://media.arcus.org
ED11A-0109
The Arctic Research Consortium of the United States
The Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS) is a nonprofit membership organization composed of universities and institutions that have a substantial commitment to research in the Arctic. ARCUS was formed in 1988 to serve as a forum for planning, facilitating, coordinating, and implementing interdisciplinary studies of the Arctic; to act as a synthesizer and disseminator of scientific information on arctic research; and to educate scientists and the general public about the needs and opportunities for research in the Arctic. ARCUS, in collaboration with the broad science community, relevant agencies and organizations, and other stakeholders, coordinates science planning and educational activities across disciplinary and organizational boundaries. Examples of current ARCUS science planning activities include: serving as the project office for the multi-agency Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) program and providing support to the related Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST), and serving as the Science Management Office for the National Science Foundation (NSF) Arctic System Science (ARCSS) Program. ARCUS' central educational activity is PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating), an International Polar Year (IPY) program whereby K-12 educators and researchers work together in hands-on field experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic to advance polar science education. Additional science planning, educational, information, and outreach activities include the Witness the Arctic newsletter, the Arctic Visiting Speakers' Series, the ArcticInfo listserve, the Internet Media Archive (IMA), the annual Arctic Forum conference, and many others. More information about these and other ARCUS activities can be found at the ARCUS website at www.arcus.org. http://www.arcus.org
ED11A-0110
The IPY Arctic Gateway at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) at 78°N
An important part of the International Polar Year (IPY) is to provide information about the IPY to researchers, the local community, media, tourists and the general public. In order to serve this purpose, an IPY Educational and Outreach Centre has been established at the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) which is located at 78°N. The Gateway is situated in a 70 square meter locality within the Svalbard Science Centre (SSC). It provides access to six computers with internet access as well as printing and faxing facilities. In addition, both poster and screen presentations on IPY projects active on Svalbard can be viewed. Reading material (booklets and brochures) is also available. This presentation gives an overview of the activities of the Gateway during the first months of operation and future work. This includes (1) establishing a physical contact point in the Arctic for relevant inquires from media and other interested, (2) providing a service to field researchers visiting Svalbard during the IPY, (3) supporting local capacity building by informing the local community about research related questions, (4) exploring the possibilities of setting up a program for teachers from primary and secondary schools to engage in field research on Svalbard, (5) helping to faciliate science based tourism in cooperation with local tourist operators, (6) establishing the SSC as the hub for education and research on Svalbard. http://www.unis.no/IPY/Default.htm
ED11A-0111
Whither Arctic Sea Ice? - An Earth Exploration Toolbook chapter on the climate's canary in a coal mine
Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly. Since 2002, summer Arctic sea ice extents have been at record or near-record lows; winter extents have also showed a marked decline. Even in comparison to the previous five extreme low years, the 2007 summer melt season has been stunning, with dramatically less ice than the previous record in 2005. This is further evidence that the Arctic sea ice may have already passed a tipping point toward a state without ice during the summer by 2050 or before. Such a change will have profound impacts on climate as well as human and wildlife activities in the region. The "Whither Arctic Sea Ice?" Earth Exploration Toolbook chapter (http://serc.carleton.edu/eet/seaice/index.html) exposes students to satellite-derived sea ice data and allows them to process and interpret the data to "discover" these sea ice changes for themselves. A sample case study in Hudson Bay has been developed that relates the physical changes occurring on the sea ice to peoples and wildlife that depend on the ice for their livelihood. This approach provides a personal connection for students and allows them to relate to the impacts of the changes. Suggestions are made for further case studies that can be developed using the same data relating to topical events in the Arctic. The EET chapter exposes students to climate change, scientific data, statistical concepts, and image processing software providing an avenue for the communication of IPY data and science to teachers and students. http://serc.carleton.edu/eet/seaice/index.html
ED11A-0112
Wildlife, Snow, Coffee, and Video: The IPY Activities of the University of Alaska Young Researchers' Network
The University of Alaska International Polar Year (IPY) Young Researchers' Network is a group of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Our interdisciplinary group operates as a volunteer network to promote the International Polar Year through education and outreach aimed at the general public and Alaskan students of all ages. The Young Researchers' Network sponsors and organizes science talks or Science Cafés by guest speakers in public venues such as coffee shops and bookstores. We actively engage high school students in IPY research concerning the ionic concentrations and isotopic ratios of precipitation through Project Snowball. Our network provides hands-on science activities to encourage environmental awareness and initiate community wildlife monitoring programs such as Wildlife Day by Day. We mentor individual high school students pursuing their own research projects related to IPY through the Alaska High School Science Symposium. Our group also interacts with the general public at community events and festivals to share the excitement of IPY for example at the World Ice Art Championship and Alaska State Fair. The UA IPY Young Researchers' Network continues to explore new partnerships with educators and students in an effort to enhance science and education related to Alaska and the polar regions in general. For more information please visit: http://ipy-youth.uaf.edu or e-mail: ipy-youth@alaska.edu http://ipy-youth.uaf.edu
ED11A-0113
NEW Planetarium Programs for Polar Informal Science Education
The modern planetarium is an immersive full-dome theater that can take audiences to Polar Regions in the past, present, or future and can simulate dynamic polar events. With the goal of public engagement and education, we are producing two programs: Night of the Titanic and Ice Worlds. Night of the Titanic uses a famous tragedy to uncover the science that could have saved the ship and the changing conditions in the North Atlantic over the last century. This program also fosters discussion about how humans evaluate data and make critical decisions related to the changing condition of polar ice. Ice Worlds uses comparative planetology themes to present Earth in the context of all ice worlds in the solar system, thus providing a broader perspective for analysis of changes in Earth's Polar Regions. Both programs rely on themes of high public interest to drive attendance and engagement. Both programs are being developed for the large dome theater or planetarium market and for portable Discovery Domes, which can reach urban and rural audiences throughout the world. This paper focuses on techniques for presentation of rigorous science content in a context that will engage the general public as well as school groups over a wide age range.
ED11A-0114
Front-Row Seat at the IPY: The Field Notes Electronic Newsletter
As employees of Polar Field Services/VPR, the arctic logistics provider to the US National Science Foundation, we bear witness to the exploration, documentation, and celebration of the International Polar Year (IPY). Our front- row vantage point (logisticians working with field scientists) offers us a rare opportunity to report on developments at the frontiers of polar research and to describe how scientists work in the Arctic. Our reporting mechanism is field notes, a weekly (summer) to monthly (winter) electronic digest of information about the IPY research we support. Each issue showcases a short "cover" piece highlighting science projects or profiling arctic program participants. In addition, field notes offers news updates, short interviews, and blog-style dispatches contributed by researchers and support personnel. Wherever possible, we include URLs so readers may find more information via the Web: we link to an online database of projects we maintain for the NSF, to university Web sites, project blogs, and so on. We aim to inform the interested layperson about the myriad of activity in the IPY. We like to show that arctic science is interesting, relevant--and a great adventure. We've found field notes to be an excellent outreach venue. By no means a slick media outlet, field notes is published "on the side" by a small but dedicated group of employees who are endlessly fascinated by, and who enjoy an engaging perspective on, contemporary arctic research. http://www.vecopolar.com/ > Newsletter
ED11A-0115
The Nuvuk Archaeological Project: Learning About and From the Past in the North
This poster describes an ongoing project which involves Northern students in archaeological and ethnographic research, and also presents information to a broader non-Northern audience. The Nuvuk Archaeological Project involves students in all phases of a major archaeological project to excavate threatened cultural resources, and save the data they contain about the past 1100 or 1200 years of history at Nuvuk. The project includes excavation of a significant Thule cemetery as well as more modern work areas. Next season it will expand to include some work at Piġniq (Birnirk), type site of the Birnirk culture. This project has been ongoing since 2005, and builds on experience with training high school and college students in Arctic fieldwork and laboratory archaeology. This season we added components to accommodate visiting students from Hawaii and students from the Rural Alaskan Honors Institute (RAHI) program, as well as students from the local junior college, some of whom were non-traditional students.
ED11A-0116
Polar Researchers Engage K\-12 Students From Their Remote Field Camp Using an Interactive Website.
Researchers create an educational documentary for classrooms showing students how global climate change is altering the lives of Adelie penguins. Classes are able to view baby Adelie penguins grow on a daily basis as researchers post pictures of selected nests everyday onto an interactive website. Students maintain a virtual field journal gathering their own data and making predictions about these penguins and their ability to raise their young and survive in this harsh environment. The interactive website includes many opportunities for students to become engaged with the researchers, live from their remote field camp in Antarctica. http://www.penguinscience.com
ED11A-0117
Providing a virtual tour of a glacial watershed
SEAMONSTER, a NASA funded sensor web project, is the SouthEast Alaska MOnitoring Network for Science, Telecommunications, Education, and Research. Seamonster is leveraging existing open-source software and is an implementation of existing sensor web technologies intended to act as a sensor web testbed, an educational tool, a scientific resource, and a public resource. The primary focus area of initial SEAMONSTER deployment is the Lemon Creek watershed, which includes the Lemon Creek Glacier studied as part of the 1957-58 IPY. This presentation describes our year one efforts to maximize education and public outreach activities of SEAMONSTER. During the first summer, 37 sensors were deployed throughout two partially glaciated watersheds and facilitated data acquisition in temperate rain forest, alpine, lacustrine, and glacial environments. Understanding these environments are important for public understanding of climate change. These environments are geographically isolated, limiting public access to, and understanding of, such locales. In an effort to inform the general public and primary educators about the basic processes occurring in these unique natural systems, we are developing an interactive website. This web portal will supplement and enhance environmental science primary education by providing educators and students with interactive access to basic information from the glaciological, hydrological, and meteorological systems we are studying. In addition, we are developing an interactive virtual tour of the Lemon Glacier and its watershed. This effort will include Google Earth as a means of real-time data visualization and will take advantage of time-lapse movies, photographs, maps, and satellite imagery to promote an understanding of these unique natural systems and the role of sensor webs in education. http://seamonsterak.com/
ED11A-0118
IPY: Engaging Antarctica: Bringing Antarctic Geoscience to the Public Through a Flexible Exhibit Package and a NOVA Television Documentary
IPY: Engaging Antarctica is designed to increase public understanding of geoscience research in Antarctica through hands-on learning activities and a NOVA television documentary. This informal science education project focuses on the multi-national, NSF-funded Antarctic Drilling Project (ANDRILL). The ANDRILL project is the most recent effort in an ongoing program to recover stratigraphic records from Antarctica. ANDRILL's primary objectives are to investigate Antarctica's role in global environmental change over the past 65 million years and to better understand that continent's possible responses to global changes in the future. The IPY project offers an innovative outreach package of hands-on learning activities, museum-quality banners, and video podcasts. This flexible exhibit package is called the Antarctica's Climate Secrets Flexhibit. Approximately ten sessions of learning activities culminate with youth participants using models, photographs, and other learning props to host an IPY event for their community. The materials enable youth groups, camps, or classes to learn about and then share their knowledge of Antarctica and geoscience research. Youth groups and classes can apply for grant funds to cover the costs of activity supplies and printing. The NOVA documentary has a working title of Antarctica's Icy Secrets. Its planned release date is in 2009. The documentary will provide a geological perspective on Antarctica's role in global climate, focusing on the methods and findings of current geoscience researchers. http://www.andrill.org/flexhibit
ED11A-0119
An Introduction to the UK Polar Network: Education and Outreach
The UK Polar Network is the UK branch of the IPY Youth Steering Committee, an endorsed IPY Project, and the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS). We have two aims in the UKPN: (1) to provide a network for early career polar researchers working in the UK and (2) to carry out education and outreach activities in UK schools, science festivals and through our website. The Education and Outreach working group is involved in organising programs for a range of age groups including engaging activities for primary and secondary school children, information packs on careers and gap year ideas to school leavers and undergraduate students. The intention is, as far as possible, to keep these events free through fundraising. In addition we aim to provide funding for UK polar researchers to attend national networking days and international IPY conferences to present their work, and are involved with organising workshops at these events. In addition, our website is being developed to provide discussion boards, careers information for polar researchers, as well as information for the public, photos and blogs from polar researchers in the field. http://www.polarnetwork.org
ED11A-0120
Opportunities for IPY Higher Education and Outreach
A very rich network for higher education and outreach during the fourth International Polar Year (IPY) exists through the University of the Arctic (UArctic, www.uarctic.org), a collaborative consortium of more than ninety institutions e.g. universities, colleges, and other organizations committed to higher education and research in the North, as well as eighteen other projects submitted as Expression of Intents to the IPY Joint Committee formed into an IPY cluster. The coordination office for this UArctic IPY education outreach efforts is located at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (www.uaf.edu and www.alaska.edu/ipy). The education outreach programs reflect a continuum of learning as a lifelong process that targets different audiences and approaches: 1) primary and secondary students through teacher professional development workshops on science teaching and research; 2) undergraduate students via education and research experience; 3) graduate students through integrated education and research; 4) early career scientists/university faculty via professional development; and 5) communities/ general public via continuing education/adult education either through formal or informal ways. Additionally there are organizations such as the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) and the Youth Steering Committee (YSC) including a newly formed group on tertiary education to nurture the next generation of polar and non-polar scientists and foster the leadership of the next IPY.
ED11A-0121
Going with the Floe? An Analysis of the Epic Expeditions of Fridtjof Nansen and Sir Ernest Shackleton
One hundred years ago, the heroic age of polar exploration was underway. At first glance the Arctic-based Fridtjof Nansen and Antarctic-based Sir Ernest Shackleton, and their most famous expeditions, are literally poles apart. But the expeditions wound up having much in common, including the fact that their fates were largely dependent on their drift trajectory in the sea ice pack and, in Shackleton's case, the wind and ocean currents. These are natural forces, outside the control of the expedition leaders. Were Nansen and Shackleton lucky that the ice and ocean delivered them and their crew to locations from which they could return? Or were their fates more or less inevitable, within the normal range of natural conditions? While we cannot reconstruct the wind and ocean patterns that actually existed 100 years ago to answer this question, we looked at variability over the past three decades to explore potential alternate fates of these expeditions. Our analysis indicates that Nansen and Shackleton were both lucky and unlucky in the natural conditions that they encountered during their expeditions. Most years since 1979, Nansen would have gotten much closer to the North Pole – his goal -- than his ship did in 1895, so he was unlucky in that respect. On the other hand, he was lucky with the relatively short drift duration of his ship in the Arctic pack ice. Shackleton was also lucky in the rapid pace of drift within the pack. The fact that his trajectory was so far to the west might have been a factor in the crushing and sinking of his ship, but it did allow him to land most of his men on Elephant Island while he went for help. Shackleton's heroic, and harrowing, boat journey to South Georgia turned out to be helped by prevailing conditions: it was within the likely ocean drift trajectory from Elephant Island. Analyses such as these, including "Nansen's Luck" by Roger Colony, and "The Coldest March" by Susan Solomon, help set history and profiles of leadership within a scientific framework, engaging an interdisciplinary suite of scholars, students and the general public in understanding the role of the environment, environmental variability, and environmental change.
ED11A-0122
Ice Stories: An Educational Collaboration between the Exploratorium and IPY Scientists.
The Exploratorium, a renowned interactive science museum in San Francisco, has launched a major NSF-funded public education project to highlight research in the Arctic and Antarctic during the International Polar Year. "Ice Stories" will partner museum media and web producers with polar scientists working in the field to bring their research to the Internet and museum audiences via live Webcasts, video clips, blogs, podcasts, and other media platforms. To prepare scientists for their role as field correspondents, the Exploratoirum will train a cohort of 20- 30 young investigators in media collection, production and narrative story telling during an intensive one-week workshop in San Francisco. The museum will curate the polar field reports, and other IPY news and education events, into a continuously updated Web portal on the Exploratorium's award-winning Website and highlight the ongoing research in museum programming, floor demonstrations, and exhibits. These unique collaborations between formal and informal science can serve as a model for other partnerships during major scientific endeavors beyond the International Polar Year. http://www.exploratorium.edu/poles