Polar News and Notes Current News

This winter will mark 100 years since explorers first reached the South Pole within weeks of each other  — Roald Amundsen on December 14, 1911, and Robert Falcon Scott on January 17, 1912. Commemorations, exhibits, and books are expected; some events have already begun and at least one book published.
Norway will celebrate two anniversaries in […]

“The work must continue” was the message when the organizers of the International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY) presented the main research findings at a ceremony in Geneva in February. More than 160 projects involved researchers in more than 60 countries during the two-year scientific campaign focused on the polar regions.
IPY was a joint venture […]

A team of scientists from the United Kingdom has announced that it will explore a lake that has been buried beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet for hundreds of thousands of years.
During the 2012-2013 Antarctic winters, researchers will sample water from subglacial Lake Ellsworth in the search for life forms and extract sediment from the lake […]

The USA-National Phenology Network (USA-NPN), a consortium of government, academic and citizen scientists, has launched a new program built on volunteer observations of seasonal changes in plant and animal behavior. The observations will be monitored by scientists and resource managers to track the influence of climate changes on the seasonal cycles of plants, animals, and […]

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is asking individuals, businesses, governments and organizations around the world to turn off their lights for one hour on Saturday, March 28, at 8:30 p.m. local time to make a global statement about the urgent need for action on climate change.
Observed annually, Earth Hour is expected to involve 950 cities […]

Integrating science and literacy content gets a boost every March when the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children’s Book Council release their list of Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12. Each year since 1973, the two organizations have been selecting high quality, engaging, and scientifically accurate books from publishers of books for […]

Aerial views of migrating land mammals are not that unusual today, but videos of migrating Arctic marine mammals were—until this past summer.  
A camera crew aboard a helicopter captured the summer migration of the narwhal, an elusive, medium-size whale, for a natural history unit of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). According to a news story […]

The 106 passengers and crew stranded when the adventure cruise ship Ocean Nova ran aground have been safely transferred to another ship.  The Clipper Adventure rescued the passengers and crew and is returning to Ushuaia, Argentina’s southernmost city, where the 15-day polar exploration originally began.
 The Ocean Nova ran into trouble in high winds near an Argentinian […]

The Great Backyard Bird Count will take place February 13-16, 2009. The sponsors, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, invite people of all ages throughout North America to contribute to knowledge about bird population trends.
Anyone, from novice bird watchers to experts, can participate by counting for as little as 15 […]

In early January, a coalition of more than 500 universities, K-12 schools, educators, scientific societies, science centers and museums, government agencies, advocacy groups, and others kicked off the Year of Science, or YoS2009. The Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) expects this yearlong recognition, with events scheduled across the country, will engage the […]