News Archive

Twice a year, the Association of Early Career Scientists (APECS) celebrates International Polar Week during the equinox, when day- and night-time are equal all around the world. During this week, they share a series of activities through APECS international and its national committees to raise awareness of the polar and alpine areas - their indigenous people, wildlife, facts, stories, scientists, and landscapes, as well as the risks they currently face, especially due to climatic changes.

This year, they are hosting a number of activities including:

• Photo, Poetry, and Essay Competition
• Indigenous Art
• Polar Times - March Polar Week Special Episode
• Webinar: When Indigenous meets western

We hope you have the chance to celebrate this special week by taking part in some of the festivities!

ARCUS would like to invite Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) 2021 participants to join our sessions on 25 March on “Experiences in Sustaining Collaborative Arctic Research Teams.” There will be two sessions on 25 March (11:30–13:30 GMT and 15:30–17:30 GMT). Each session will include oral presentations and lightning talks from poster presenters followed by an interactive discussion to share successes, failures and challenges faced when building and sustaining collaborative research teams. Additional resources shared by participants will also be made available on the ARCUS website after the meeting.

The Inspiring Girls* Expedition program seeks 16 and 17-year-old girls for tuition-free mini-research expeditions to study at the elbows of glaciologists, oceanographers, artists, and other professionals. Girls on Ice is the original expedition where girls study glaciers, volcanoes, and the alpine environment. We also now have Girls in Icy Fjords, Girls on Rock, Girls on Water, Girls in the Forest.

Applications must be started by January 22, 2021. Please visit the website for details on eligibility and selection criteria. Inspiring Girl expeditions are tuition-free, wilderness science expeditions that offer a powerful opportunity for young women from all social and economic backgrounds to build their creativity, curiosity, courage, and confidence; students' grades are not considered in their selection process.

Please share this with teachers or teenagers you know!

Funded by NSF, NASA, Alaska CASC, and donations from generous people like you!

*Inspiring Girls maintains an inclusive, gender-expansive acceptance policy. See our website for more information.

Teachers and students are invited for one last hurrah with Reach the World and MOSAiC.

The MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) Expedition of 2019-2020 was one of the most extensive Arctic research expeditions ever conducted, involving hundreds of people from 20 nations. In October 2019, the research icebreaker Polarstern was intentionally frozen into the Arctic sea ice and drifted almost continuously across the Arctic for the next year, allowing scientists to study all aspects of the Arctic climate system for a full seasonal cycle. Throughout that time, we connected teachers and students around the country with 16 different MOSAiC scientists and team members through the Reach the World MOSAiC virtual exchange program.

Join them on January 21st for a virtual Reach the World MOSAiC program finale!

When: Thursday, January 21st at 1:00 pm ET Where: A private Zoom room (Reach the World will send registrants a link - see below) What: This 30-minute MOSAiC program finale will include:

• Exclusive sneak peek at the forthcoming MOSAiC expedition documentary
• Interactive presentation from wildlife conservation storyteller and MOSAiC filmmaker/photographer Lianna Nixon about "Documenting the MOSAiC Expedition"
• Surprise appearances from your favorite MOSAiC expedition team members
• Final questions, answers, reflections, and good-byes

How to Participate Register for the celebration by emailing chris [at] reachtheworld.org. If you and your students like, you can also record a brief "thank you" message at this link for MOSAiC team members that will be played during the live event!

The MOSAiC education & outreach team looks forward to celebrating with you!

For information about PolarTREC educator Katie Gavenus' experiences on the MOSAiC expedition, visit https://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/mosaic

Arctic Research Speed Networking Event Events
Virtual Speed Networking Event

Join IARPC Collaborations, the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS), and UCIrvine for a virtual Arctic research speed networking event on Friday, 5 February at 9am AKT / 1pm ET. Over the course of 1.5 hours, researchers will be split into a series of small groups to rapidly get to know one another and brainstorm future collaborations. Groups will be organized across disciplines, with a particular emphasis on grouping social scientists and natural scientists together.

The Arctic Research Virtual Speed Networking event is the first activity in a series designed to provide participants with the opportunity to:

• Network with potential project partners
• Workshop interdisciplinary research ideas
• Meet with Arctic research funders

This issue includes updates from NSF’s Arctic Sciences Section; news of DOE’s reestablished Arctic Energy Office; an update on IARPC collaboration team activities; summary of a National Academies workshop report on global health and security risks associated with climate change; a report from the Polar Technology Community; information on a new service from the Arctic Data Center; an article about understanding two kinds of public knowledge of the polar regions; an article from a citizen science project investigating the dynamics of seasonal winter berry loss; news of the Toolik Field Station operations during COVID-19; updates from the Sea Ice Prediction Network–Phase 2 project; a summary of ARCUS member research updates; comments from the ARCUS Executive Director and the Board President; and a highlight of ARCUS member institution Cold Climate Housing Research Center and National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The international polar community will celebrate Antarctica Day on the 1st of December to commemorate the 61st anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty. There are many ways to celebrate this year to learn more about this amazing continent and the research being performed there, and the scientists who conduct it.

For more information regarding these events, please contact the event organizers directly through the links provided.

International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration

The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration is holding an Antarctic Week Festival from 30 November to 4 December. Students and the public will have a unique opportunity to listen to those working on the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration and ask questions. Each day, there will be a talk about what it's like to live and work in Antarctica. The talks are 30 minutes long, followed by 30 minutes of questions and answers. These webinars are hosted by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and will be recorded and posted on the website.

APECS
The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) has invited everyone to join them in celebrating Antarctica Day. Learn more about each of their events and register for their online videos on the APECS website.

PolarTREC

• For those who want to learn more about Antarctica but are teaching virtually, check out the YouTube series called, Tiny Ice: Bits from Antarctica that highlight the travel, science, and life at the South Pole, created by Jocelyn Argueta. The videos have been created in both English and Spanish.

• You can also view PolarConnect Archives of live Antarctica Day events with PolarTREC educators who were in Antarctica on December 1st in previous years.

• For more resources specifically on Antarctica, please visit the PolarTREC Resources section and type Antarctica in the search box.

PolarTREC informal educator Jocelyn Argueta traveled to the South Pole in 2019 with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and Askaryan Radio Array Expedition. She created a YouTube series Tiny Ice: Bits from Antarctica to highlight the travel, science, and life at the South Pole, both in English and Spanish. In this 10-part series, each topic is explained in 2-minute, digestible segments which include photos and videos from her trip, as well as anecdotes to help viewers get a personal perspective of Antarctica. You can find the English version here and the Spanish version here.

Teachers in the U.S. and abroad are adapting to virtual and hybrid classrooms during the pandemic. To assist teachers during this time, a number of PolarTREC lesson plans have been identified and assembled into a Virtual Resources Collection. We hope that you will find these resources useful for online learning situations. Other lesson plans are currently being adapted for online learning, so remember to revisit our website for additional resources.

Full resolution photos are now available online for PolarTREC educator Sarah Slack's 2020 expedition (part of the 2019-20 cohort) aboard the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer icebreaker in the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica near Thwaites Glacier. The expedition took place from January 26th to March 26th, 2020.