PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating) is currently accepting applications. Teachers are invited to submit an application to participate in field research learning experiences during the 2009 (Arctic) or 2009-2010 (Antarctic) field seasons.

Through the PolarTREC program , over 40 K-12 U.S. teachers will spend two to six weeks in the Arctic or Antarctic, working closely with researchers in the field as an integral part of the science team. PolarTREC teachers and researchers will be matched based on similar goals and interests and teachers will be trained to meet the program requirements prior to the field season. While in the field, teachers and researchers will communicate extensively with their colleagues, communities, and students of all ages across the globe, using a variety of tools including satellite phones, online journals, podcasts, and interactive “Live from IPY” events and web-based seminars.

Teachers and research projects will be selected and matched to fill the openings available. All major expenses associated with teacher participation in PolarTREC field experiences are covered by the program, including transportation to and from the field site, food, lodging, and substitute teacher costs.

The teacher application deadline is Monday, September 29, 2008. The program expects to notify teachers of selection decisions in December 2008.

More information and application forms are available at http://www.polartrec.com. Teachers can learn more about PolarTREC by participating in an informational webinar on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Register for the webinar by Tuesday, September 9 at http://www.polartrec.com/join/informational-webinar/form.

Don’t miss the chance to participate in current polar research and enhance your science teaching practice!

You may have noticed our new widget, a Shelfari bookshelf (if not, see the right sidebar). We’ve created a Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears group on Shelfari - a social networking site for book lovers.

Shelfari is a free site that allows you to create your own virtual bookshelf, add books that you’ve read, are currently reading, or plan to read, and post comments and reviews about your books and those on other’s shelves. In the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears group, you have access to selected polar-themed children’s books from the magazine’s monthly Virtual Bookshelf column. We hope you’ll join us and post your own comments, reviews, and ideas for classroom use about our selected books!

Visit the Beyond Penguins group at http://www.shelfari.com/beyondpenguins/shelf or click on the widget in the blog sidebar.

Get a more in-depth view of content and literacy strategies from Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears and interact online with our presenters and other educators across the country!

The National Science Digital Library is starting up its professional development series of free web seminars for educators in partnership with the National Science Teachers Association again on Sept 25th. These 90-minute programs run from 6:30pm-8:00pm Eastern on their specified date. The fall schedule features two seminars related to Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears:

Sept 25th: Celebrating Astronomy: A Star’s Story

Learn about the life cycle of a star, dark matter and other concepts related to 5th-12th grade astronomy

Oct 29th: Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears Series: Physical Science From the Poles

What’s the difference between an ice shelf and an ice sheet, or an iceberg and sea ice? Why do glaciers and icebergs appear blue? How will melting ice in the Polar Regions affect sea level? In this seminar, we’ll explore ice’s many forms in the Arctic and Antarctica and how this real-world context can be used to teach physical science concepts such as states and changes of matter, density, and buoyancy.

Nov 13th: Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears Series: Energy and the Polar Environment

The Polar Regions provide an interesting real-world context for the study of energy: intense seasonal fluctuations in the amount of solar radiation and heat, and the albedo (reflectivity) of the ice caps. Climate change and the declining sea ice of the Arctic are changing the energy balance of this region.

Dec 9th: Chemistry Comes Alive: III—Water

Registration opens in September. More information coming soon.

How to register:

1. Read the list of programs available

2. Click on the link of the program for which you would like to sign up

3. Register for each seminar you want to attend

You’ll receive login info that you will need to log on on the day of the seminar.

See you online!

Would you like to add some real-time data to your penguin unit this year? Thanks to education outreach resources from an Antarctic research team, you can!

Dr. David Ainley studies Adelie penguin populations in Antarctica. His long term research of 30 years has recently shown indication of the penguin populations reacting to climate change. His web site, Penguin Science, details his research findings and provides a wealth of materials for teachers, students, and the general public. Multimedia resources on the site include video, images, and the opportunity to order a 40 minute DVD sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Teachers will be most interested in the Education page, which provides a variety of projects and resources for the classroom. Students can receive a postcard from Antarctica, ask questions of researchers, or participate in the popular “Nest Check” project. In this project, the research team selects six Adelie penguin families to follow and take pictures every day. Students create a journal and record data such as weather conditions, length of foraging trips for the female vs male, dates of egg(s) laying, chick hatching, fledging, and so on. This real-time data project provides a wonderful opportunity to observe and discuss penguin behavior. This year’s Nest Check begins Nov 5 and ends Jan 30. Learn more about Nest Check and other Penguin Science educational resources at http://www.penguinscience.com/classroom_home.php.

September 24 will be the officially designated Sixth International Polar Day. Polar days are held every three months during the two-year-long scientific program focused on the poles, the International Polar Year 2007-2008 (IPY). The days are occasions for schools, science centers, and museums to engage their audiences in learning about the importance of the poles to life on our planet.

 The theme for the sixth polar day is Connecting Communities from Pole to Pole. The education office of the International Polar Year organization provides ideas and resources for participation by classrooms and community groups. Among the ideas for “connecting communities” are:

Make contact with other classrooms and groups via a web interface to be provided at the IPY site. 

Hold a class discussion about experiences and lifestyles in your community and then imagine the discussion held in a country nearer or farther from the poles. Seven questions are provided by the IPY.

 Post your discussion on the IPY web site and compare your answers to those given by schools in a different area.  

Launch a virtual balloon on the IPY web site’s world map on September 24 to show your organization’s participation. 

Participate in live web and video connections to the polar regions and experts

IPY will supply links to many resources about the culture, history, and modern-day concerns of people living in the Arctic. Printable flyers and press releases will be available for publicizing Polar Day events in your school and community.

Looking ahead to a time when the “freezing land and seas of the Arctic are likely to be getting hotter in terms of geopolitics,” Durham University in the United Kingdom has dawn up a map that plots boundaries, disputed claims, and potential trouble spots.

Martin Pratt of the university’s International Boundaries Research Unit says the map is the “most precise depiction yet of the limits and the future dividing lines that could be drawn across the Arctic region.” Those who might want to draw lines would represent large powerful nations as well smaller ones.

You can download the map free of charge from the IBRU web site at http://www.dur.ac.uk/ibru/resources/arctic

The map follows a series of historical and ongoing arguments about ownership. Disputes can be expected as countries search for new sources of oil, gas and minerals. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that a fifth of the world’s undiscovered, technically recoverable resources lie within the Arctic Circle.

With articles and lesson plans, the September issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears gets down to the rocks and minerals that lie below all that ice and snow. The web site OneGeology strips all earth’s coverings—plants, soils, water, and man-made structures—away to launch the first-ever collection of digital geological maps of the world.

 Earth and computer scientists from 79 countries worked on the global project to make geological maps from every part of the world accessible on the Internet. A web language has been written for geology that will allow nations to share data.  

The prototype OneGeology Portal was launched at the International Geological Congress in Oslo, Norway, on August 6, 2008. It is now available for anyone to view and for OneGeology participants to register their data.

OneGeology, supported by UNESCO and other bodies, is a project of the UN International Year of Planet Earth 2008.

An extra feature of the OneGeology site is a section illustrating the many ways in which geology enriches our lives, from serving as inspiration for art and music to providing place names and other words to our vocabulary. Another section in development, OneGeology4Youngsters, is designed for students under 12 years.

Well inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found vents in the submerged Mid-Atlantic Ridge spewing out water as hot as 570 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the farthest north anyone has seen black smoker vents — so called because it appears as if dark smoke is billowing from them. In fact, the “smoke” is actually iron- and sulfur-rich minerals falling from the plumes of scalding waters shooting from underwater openings, or vents, in the earth’s crust.

The solidified sulfide minerals that accumulate around the vents have created one of the most massive hydrothermal sulfide deposits ever found on the seafloor, according to Marvin Lilley, an oceanographer with the University of Washington and a member of the expedition from the University of Bergen’s Centre for Geobiology in Norway.

 Scientists had not expected to find such active vents in the northern seabeds. Yet, they believe the vent field may have been active for many thousands of years. They spent nearly a decade looking for the vents, mapping the ocean bottom, sampling ocean water for warmth, and lowering optical sensors to detect the chemistry of the water. For a firsthand account of the wonder of finding the vents between Greenland and Norway, go to the expedition web diary for Day 17 at  http://www.geobio.uib.no/View.aspx?mid=1062&itemid=90&pageid=1093&moduledefid=71

Last fall, Iceland established a committee on climate change to guide the government’s policy on environmental issues. This summer the first report was delivered—with predictions of significant changes. For example,

 Farmers will be able to grow wheat and pumpkins by the middle of the century.

 Fish species, such as cod, haddock flounder, halibut, and sole, that have a high commercial value are moving into Icelandic waters.

 By the end of the century, about 80 species of birds will have migrated to Iceland.

 More energy can be produced from waterfalls as glaciers melt rapidly this century.

 Volcanic activity in the Vatnajokull Glacier is expected to increase.

The committee chairman Halldór Björnsson, who presented the report, said, “We expect the warming to continue for the next decades and more significant changes to the environment than what we have seen before. Iceland will look very different with a changed biosphere by the mid-21st century and even more so by the end of this century.”  The committee includes meteorologists, a geologist, a marine biologist and an engineer.

After three million years of being frozen out, mollusks and other marine creatures in the North Pacific will be able to move into the Arctic Ocean thanks to global warming. Researchers from the University of California and the California Academy of Sciences say warmer waters and ice-free conditions will likely allow Pacific species of mussels, barnacles, snails and sea mollusks to spread through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean and on to the North Atlantic.

Marine ecologist Geerat Vermeij and paleontologist Peter Roopnarine found evidence in Greenland fossil records that a similar migration occurred during a warming period more than three million years ago.  

The researchers believe this current warming will bring changes in the composition and dynamics of North Atlantic animals and plants, but not necessarily extinction of the native species. Vermeij and Roopnarine said the effect on fisheries and on the human population is “an open question.” At least, they have warned people who make their living from marine life on the coasts that an invasion is on the way.

The study “The Coming Arctic Invasion” was reported in the August 8 issue of Science magazine.