ED13A-01
IPY EOC USA: U.S. Education, Outreach and Communication Efforts for the International Polar Year 2007-2008
As an international collaborative effort involving scientific organizations and scientists from over 60 nations to study the polar regions and their global linkages during an intensive observation period running from 2007 to 2009, the International Polar Year (IPY) is recognized as a unique and timely opportunity to communicate to broad audiences the dynamics of polar regions and their global connections. The overall international effort to develop specific education, outreach and communication (EOC) strategies and foster a broad community supporting IPY activities has benefitted from the planning of the U.S. Polar Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, and from workshops funded and organized by the U.S. National Science Foundation, NOAA, Columbia University and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). This paper will examine the history of these efforts, the challenges the community has faced in pursuing the opportunities, and the successes to date of the diverse array of programs and projects aimed at communicating the "who, what, where, how, when and why" of IPY activities to diverse, non-technical audiences.
ED13A-02
Breaking the Ice Between Reporters and Scientists During IPY
Communicating scientific information to the general public is a challenge. If the story's not about health advice, a major breakthrough or a natural disaster, scientists may be left wondering how to capture the public's attention and convey the importance of their research. This is a particular challenge in the International Polar Year in which the relevant research has global impacts, but is more nuanced than the headline-grabbing threat of melting ice caps. For example, as ANDRILL punches through ice, it's rock the scientists are after. What can a rock core tell us about how ice comes and goes, and what kind of drill can penetrate 20 million years of strata anyway? In this talk, I will describe how scientists can help communicate to journalists – and thereby the public – the importance of polar research, and give examples of how to help make their work compelling and accessible to those outside of a particular circle of expertise. I will use my experience reporting on science and climate change for the BBC to discuss what frustrations journalists have when talking to scientists and what scientists find difficult in talking to reporters.
ED13A-03 INVITED
IPY Storytelling
"Live from the Poles" tells the stories of science on ice. This NSF-sponsored education and outreach project (polardiscovery.whoi.edu) aims to go beyond results and sound bites to convey the full experience of polar research with all its trials, triumphs, and nuances. It uses a multimedia approach, including online photo essays posted daily during expeditions, along with videos, interviews, podcasts, animations, and audio clips-plus live satellite phone calls to audiences in major museums and science centers throughout the country. Our media team, typically a science writer and photographer, are embedded into the research program for the duration of the project. They live in the polar environment with the science party, bolstering their ability to convey the "human side" of the story that engages the public: What inspired the researchers to study the Arctic? What do they eat for dinner? How do they cope with the environment and being away from home? What other unexpected challenges will arise and how will they be overcome? The first expedition, in April 2007, shared the excitement of working in Nunavut, Canada, as researchers prepared to deploy instruments at the North Pole Environmental Observatory. The second followed an international scientific team's search for hydrothermal vents aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden in July-August 2007. The Polar Discovery Web site has attracted more than 74,000 online visitors in its first eight months of operation. During the first two expeditions, the project facilitated 15 live audio talks to museum audiences, media outlets, and teacher workshops. This presentation will focus on lessons learned from the first two expeditions, with perspectives on science reporting and writing in the field from a science writer at AGU, and on the art of documentary photography, from photographer and project manager Chris Linder, who will speak via satellite phone from the third Polar Discovery expedition in Antarctica. http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu
ED13A-04 INVITED
AccessData: Opening Effective Lines of Communication Between IPY Scientists and Educators to Bring IPY Data Into the Classroom
Creating learning modules that utilize IPY data requires knowledge about the data, science, curriculum design, and educational context. The AccessData group has designed a 2.5 day workshop and follow-up strategy to facilitate the creation of effective IPY data-rich educational modules, making this data more accessible and usable by educators and students. Planning for the AccessData Workshop begins with the identification of teams of experts that include data providers, tool specialists, scientists, curriculum developers, and educators. Each team focuses on specific geoscience datasets and analysis tools. Prior to and during the workshop, each team is given a set of tasks that lead to developing an educational activity. The teams have time to work together at the workshop and the services of a professional curriculum developer who completes the learning activity after the workshop is over. Work begun at the workshop culminates when the activity is published as a chapter in the Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET, http://serc.carleton.edu/eet). The theme of the 2007 AccessData Workshop was IPY and Global Climate Change. This resulted in four of the ten teams focusing their efforts on IPY issues and data, and will result in at least four new EET chapters covering topics such as: 1) the collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf, 2) changes in Arctic sea ice extent over the past 30 years, 3) the impact of climate changes in Alaska on the plant phenology, and 4) the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. In addition to developing outlines of educational modules on these topics, the teams also work together to produce a set of educationally relevant metadata for the datasets they plan to use in their activities. These are called DataSheets (http://serc.carleton.edu/usingdata/browse_sheets.html); and they enable educators, students, and other non-specialists to access the datasets and use them for learning. This presentation will focus on how the workshop facilitates the communication between IPY scientists and educational communities. It will also provide an overview of IPY-related EET chapters and how they can be integrated into teacher professional development programs and classrooms. http://serc.carleton.edu/usingdata/accessdata
ED13A-05
"Live from IPY"—Connecting Students, Teachers and the Public to Polar Research
PolarTREC–Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating is a three-year (2007-2009) teacher professional development program of the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) that pairs K-12 teachers with researchers to improve science education through authentic polar research experiences. Each year of PolarTREC, approximately 15 teachers spend two to six weeks in the Arctic or Antarctic, working closely with researchers investigating a wide range of topics such as sea-ice dynamics, terrestrial ecology, marine biology, atmospheric chemistry, and long-term climate change. PolarTREC is funded by the National Science Foundation. While in the field, teachers and researchers communicate extensively with their colleagues, communities, and hundreds of students of all ages across the globe, using a variety of communication technologies and tools to appeal to broad student and public engagement in polar science. Through the PolarTREC website (www.polartrec.com) teachers connect from the field through the use of online journals and forums, photo galleries, podcasts, and learning resources. "Live from IPY," a key activity of PolarTREC, is a free, interactive, distance-learning experience that virtually transports students and the public to unique and remote polar locations through a live Internet interface. Rather than relying solely on the asynchronous elements of online journals, forums, photo albums, and podcasts, "Live from IPY" allows real-time interaction by adding elements including live voice, video, chat, application sharing, polling, and whiteboards, but requires only telephone and/or Internet access for participants and presenters to connect. "Live from IPY" and the online outreach elements of PolarTREC convey the excitement of polar research experiences to a broad audience far beyond the classrooms of the PolarTREC teachers, allowing anyone to join a global network of scientists, teachers, students, and communities and actively participate in the International Polar Year. Since January 2007, over 20 "Live from IPY" events have been held with more than 1700 participants, primarily K- 12 students, from 43 states across the US as well as international participants from 45 countries. "Live from IPY" has allowed educators to multiply the educational value of their expeditions, demonstrating the value that technology can bring to education by igniting thousands of young imaginations to the wonders of polar science. http://www.polartrec.com
ED13A-06
Permafrost monitoring K12 outreach program
The objective of this project is to establish long-term permafrost monitoring sites adjacent to schools along the circum polar permafrost region. Permafrost will be one of the important indicators for monitoring climatic change in the future. Change in permafrost conditions also affects local ecosystems, hydrological regimes and natural disasters. The purpose of the long-term permafrost observation is fitting for future science objectives, and can also benefit students and teachers in remote village schools. Most remote villages depend on a subsistence lifestyle and will be directly affected by changing climate and permafrost condition. Monitoring the permafrost temperature in the arctic for a better understanding of the spatial distribution of permafrost and having students participate to collect the data is an ideal IPY project. Our outreach project involves drilling boreholes at village schools and installing the micro data logger with temperature sensors to measure hourly air and permafrost temperatures. Trained teachers help students download data several times a year and discuss the results in class. The data gathered from these stations is shared and can be viewed by anyone through the Internet (http://www.uaf.edu/permafrost). Using the Internet teachers can also compare their data with data form other monitoring stations. This project is becoming an useful science project for these remote villages, which tends to have limited exposure to science, despite the changing surroundings that they're daily lives depend on. NSF (EPSCoR) funded the previous seeding outreach program. Currently NSF/NASA and the International Polar Year (IPY) program support this project. In the 2006 field season, thirty-one schools participated in installing the monitoring stations. In 2007 we propose the expansion of this project to involve an additional 100 villages along the arctic. The broader impacts of this project are 1). This project will provide opportunities for field experience and educational participation at levels ranging from elementary school to high school. 2). To provide high-resolution spatial distribution of the thermal state of permafrost, especially in Alaska. 3). To assist in improving the general knowledge of the Earth's climatic pattern and opportunity to take part in understanding the climatic systems for younger generations. The obtained data and Internet Q&A systems help understand the relationship between permafrost condition and the arctic climate system. As well as being a strong outreach program to support village science education, the date sets form this project will establish a baseline for future permafrost monitoring investigations. http://www.uaf.edu/permafrost
ED13A-07
Education Outreach in Village Schools during the SnowSTAR 2007 Alaska-Canada Barren Lands Traverse.
In spring 2007, the IPY expedition, SnowSTAR-2007, traveled 4200 kilometers by snow machine across much of Alaska and Northern Canada. The primary objectives of the trip were education outreach, and collaborative US/Canadian field measurements of the snow along the route. The route started in Fairbanks, Alaska and ended in Baker Lake, Nunavut, Canada near Hudson passing through 11 communities. The primary outreach efforts during the expedition were the expedition website (http://www.barrenlands.org ) and in school presentations and interactive science demonstrations at most of the communities we visited. The website, used by school children in over 60 classrooms, and the the general public, was updated daily from the field. We gave presentations (classrooms and all-school assemblies), in nine communities. In the schools we demonstrated the equipment we use in the field, as well as two fun demonstrations of physical principles (acoustic resonance in a plastic sewer pipe and eddy current forces on a magnet falling through a copper water pipe). The community outreach was highly successful because we arrived in each community in a novel manner, and we were there during the winter when these communities are rarely visited by scientists. http://www.barrenlands.org
ED13A-08
International Polar Year From the International Space Station
Since early March 2007, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have been observing and photographing high latitude features in support of researchers conducting science associated with the International Polar Year (IPY). Seeing Earth through the eyes of an astronaut is exciting to students, and the IPY images provide easily interpretable data that are valuable for visualizing polar phenomena. To make the astronaut IPY observations available to a global audience - including scientists, classrooms and the general public - we post high quality photographs of polar features like icebergs, aurora, polar mesospheric clouds and volcanoes to an IPY website maintained by the NASA Johnson Crew Earth Observations Program at the NASA Johnson Space Center. All the imagery is cataloged and searchable in the database at the same website. The website allows users to define search parameters, create subsets of imagery data, and download the imagery and associated data free of charge. Roughly 1000 images of high latitude features have been acquired since the beginning of the 2007-2009 IPY, including the break-up of iceberg A22A in the south Atlantic Ocean, the occurrence of polar mesospheric clouds across northern Eurasia, and the eruption of Shiveluch volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. These images contribute to the nearly 40,000 images of high latitude regions that have been photographed from spacecraft since the Apollo and Skylab Programs of the 1960s-1970s. http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/IPY