Do you think the North and South poles are boring, lifeless places that have no impact on your life? Think again. The planet's northern (Arctic) and southern (Antarctic) polar areas are teeming with plants, animals and even people. Polar bears and penguins aside, these icy regions at opposite ends of the globe are important pieces in Earth's climate system. An art contest for grades 2-4 challenges U.S. students to pick a polar region, explore it and then draw a picture showing what they learned. This is the 11th annual art contest held by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Arlington, VA. The contest supports national science education standards for grades K-4. The winning artist will receive a $250 savings bond, and hi...

The Arctic and Antarctic have popped up in some of the most unusual places in popular culture, not the least of which is the cigarette card. The cigarette card sprang into existence in the mid to late nineteenth century, and was originally nothing more than a blank card inserted as a stiffener for a paper pack of cigarettes. By the 1880s, American and British companies started putting pictures of products on one side of a card, and later, information related to the picture was added to the other side. People started collecting the cards, thus the hobby of cartophily was born. As a lure to buy more cigarettes, cards were based on a common topic and organized into sets (usually 50 in number). Topics were as diverse as fire fighting equipment, Br...

The International Polar Year 2007-2008, and a wide array of polar sciences, will have a strong presence during the Fall AGU Meetings in San Francisco in December 2006. More than ten oral and poster sessions carry the IPY label or the label of an IPY-endorsed project. More than 30 additonal sessions address polar themes, from ice core science to biogeochemistry of northern watersheds. The IPY IPO has assembled a list of all these polar sessions on a single sheet for your use; here it is, as a PDF. IPY IPO will also operate a display booth, cooperatively with the US NSF Office of Polar Programs. We will share many international materials promoting IPY and operate a polar message cen...

This winter, a major new telescope is being built at the South Pole to study deep questions about the history and composition of the universe. The 10-meter (33-foot) diameter South Pole Telescope (SPT) will be pieced together by a team of two dozen scientists, engineers, and technicians in record time. In a special series of four live webcasts, blogs, and video updates from the South Pole to the Exploratorium website in November and December 2006, follow along as a team of cosmologists from the University of Chicago and their colleagues race to complete their project before the short Antarctic season comes to a close. The South Pole Telescope is one of the major scientific projects launching during the...