To see the instructions in other languages, click here

Launch a virtual balloon to show your participation in this International Polar Day: Land and Life.


Return to Main Land and Life page

If you have difficulty launching your balloon, email your name, location (latitude, longitude or town, country), and IPY message to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . It may be 24 hours, however, before your balloon appears.

To see your your balloon fly immediately, follow these simple steps:

1. Sign in to Tagzania
2. Select "Add point/route" (top right), then "Add a point"
3. Search for your location or click 'Go directly to the map' and zoom in to your area.
4. Drag the balloon to your precise location
5. Add the tag ipy2008landlife
6. Fill in your other details: name, description, photos, links.... Click on 'Save'
7. See your balloon appear on the Land and Life Virtual Balloon Launch Map.

Click on the balloons to see the pop-up text and pictures. Here is a preview:


IPY 2008: International Polar Day: Land and Life - activities around the world

The map is dynamically updated. As soon as a new location is tagged with "ipy2008landlife", it will show up the next time it is refreshed. Try adding yours, and then refreshing this page. (Only the 200 most recent are shown, but all are listed.)

You can embed the map into any web page by creating a snippet of HTML code to copy and paste using this simple tool.

Here are some suggestions for bringing Polar Land and Life in the Classroom.

If you'd like to keep in touch with future activities, please join the IPY Teachers Discussion Group.


For more in-depth directions, please read below:

March 12th, 2008 is Land and Life Day, a quarterly International Polar Day that students from around the world are marking by conducting experiments. To show that you've taken part in an activity on this International Polar Day, launch a virtual balloon by following the simple instructions below. You can visit the map showing everyone's balloons on this website, or you can embed the map on your own website.

Instructions for adding your own marker on the map:

Step 1: Get a free account with Tagzania. (If you haven't already)

Tagzania is a free location-tagging service. Once you have an account, you can mark locations on Google Maps and describe them, linking them to photos or web pages.

Register here. For your full name, you can use your school name and class. You don't need to submit an email address if you don't want to.

Step 2: Mark a location.

Log in and click on "post" in the top right-hand corned of the page. Then click on "Point".

First, find the location you want to mark on the map. You can search for your town or go directly to the map. Navigating the map is very simple — it is based on Google Maps. Use the slider on the left to zoom, and click-and-drag the map to move it. Click on "Satellite" to get satellite images, "Hybrid" to get both satellite images and roads. Google's mapping service has the most extensive images and maps available, so you will likely be able to find your school building.

Once you've found your school or the location of your experiment, click on it, so that the red balloon is centered on it.

Now add information to this marker — give it a title and a description. Also give it a tag. THIS IS IMPORTANT: for the marker to appear on the common map, you need to add a tag named "ipy2008landlife". The communal map will only show items that have that tag. You can add as many other tags as you wish.

You can also attach links to your marker using the "resources" field. For example, you could attach the URL of your project page, or the URLs of individual photos. You can only link to photos that are already on the web, so use a free photo sharing tool such as Flickr to first upload photos (or use your own school website). All you need to do then is add the link to the photo.

You can edit your own markers and change their contents at any time. If you click on a marker, you go to the detail page, which shows other nearby items that have been tagged, a map with the item, and also links to other views of the item in other maps.

3. See locations on the communal map.

You can check the communal map for all locations tagged with "ipy2008landlife", including yours.

Click on the balloons to see the pop-up text and pictures.

That map is dynamically updated. As soon as a new location is tagged with "ipy2008landlife", it will show up the next time it is refreshed. Try adding yours, and then refreshing this page.

4. That's it!

You can embed the map into any web page by creating a snippet of HTML code to copy and paste using this simple tool.