Local students participate in IPY pole-to-pole videoconference

Submitted by Jenn Wagaman
Phone: 907-474-5082
04/04/08

Children near both poles will have a chance to talk to each other and scientists about changes they are seeing in their own environments and how people are adapting to those changes during an International Polar Year pole-to-pole videoconference Tuesday, April 8, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Through the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment program, known as GLOBE, students in Fairbanks, Shageluk and Wasilla, Alaska will exchange their research ideas and interact with students from Ushuaia, Argentina, as well as with scientists from Alaska, Colorado and Argentina.

The exchange is part of the IPY GLOBE Seasons and Biomes project, which trains K-12 teachers and students to investigate seasonal and environmental changes in their biomes worldwide. The videoconference will be held in room 109 of the Butrovich Building on the UAF campus from 10 a.m. to noon.

The GLOBE Program is funded through a cooperative agreement between NASA, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and Colorado State University. The Seasons and Biomes project is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation to the International Arctic Research Center at UAF.

On Thursday, April 10, students from the videoconference along with other GLOBE Seasons and Biomes students will engage with scientists in a live web chat from 10 a.m. to noon Alaska Standard Time to further discuss issues and ideas brought up during the Tuesday videoconference. When the web chat is over, a day-and-a-half long web forum will begin that will allow additional GLOBE students from other parts of the world to participate by posting questions that scientists will respond to over the following week.

CONTACT: Elena Sparrow at esparrow@iarc.uaf.edu or 907-474-7699 or Martha Kopplin at fnmrk@uaf.edu or 907-474-2794.