Polar News and Notes Science

On January 15 and 16, the International Year of Astronomy will be launched with an opening ceremony at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Headquarters in Paris, France.
One of the goals of the year-long program is to “increase scientific awareness among the general public through the communication of scientific results in […]

The world’s largest neutrino telescope is being constructed on and under Antarctica ice. Known as IceCube, the telescope consists of strings of 60 optical detectors, each string more than half a mile long and frozen in the ice. Atop each string is a pair of 600 gallon tanks filled with clear ice and containing two […]

Tonight at 7pm EST we’re having an online chat in the TappedIn online learning community - http://tappedin.org. We’ll be working our way through the December 2008 issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine. If you can’t join us, you can still take “our tour” below. We meet the first Thursday of each […]

What was the climate like when the earth was warmer than it is today? To find the answer, researchers in a group called Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping (PRISM) are trying to reconstruct a warm period that existed 3 million years ago.
Led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), scientists are examining fossils from the […]

Researchers led by Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University believe they have a way of predicting how fast “calving events” will occur on an ice shelf. Their model, briefly described in a press release from the university and reported in the November 28 issue of Science, will prove helpful as more “calves,” or icebergs, are […]

Jessica Fries-Gaither will present the workshop “Energy Sources of the Polar Regions” on Saturday, December 6 at the National Science Teachers Association regional conference in Cincinnati, OH. The workshop is scheduled for 8:00 a.m. in Room 211 of the Duke Energy Center. We hope you’ll join us for an interactive session exploring lessons and activities […]

Did you know that Antarctica is home to the world’s southermost active volcano? Do you teach about the forces that change Earth’s surface: wind, water, and ice? If so, you’ll want to check out the latest issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine!
In the December 2008 issue, Earth’s Changing Surface, you can explore […]

The World Conference on Marine Biodiversity, meeting in Valencia, Spain, in mid-November, received the fourth report on the Census of Marine Life, which is being compiled by 2,000 scientists from 82 nations. It will be officially released in October 2010.
This report revealed some amazing new findings about life in the ocean depths. In a […]

Iceland has 109 outlet glaciers, 73 mountain glaciers, five valley glaciers and 21 surge-type glaciers, plus 55 cirque glaciers, ice caps and snow patches—and all have been counted and named. In a country about the size of the state of Virginia, residents have been observing and documenting their wealth of glaciers for centuries.
The glaciers’ […]

Tonight, Carol Landis and Jessica Fries-Gaither will present the second Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears web seminar as part of the NSDL/NSTA web seminar series. Energy and the Polar Environment discusses science concepts such as the seasons, solar radiation, albedo, and Earth’s energy balance and how teachers can incorporate these concepts into elementary curriculum. Common […]