Photo: Schools On Board
Last week, we celebrated our March Polar week on the theme ‘What Happens At The Poles Affects Us All’ with many participants from across the globe. Several APECS members participated by giving public lectures (in Norway, New Zealand, Romania, Sweden, Germany and Portugal) as part of our international lecture series and we had live webstreaming from the State of the Arctic conference in Miami throughout the week.
On Tuesday, 16th March we had a call connecting students at the University of Zambia to a Portuguese scientist, recently returned from Antarctica. The students were very concerned about the impact of climate change in Zambia, sharing with us some of the changes they have seen which include the dramatic increase in malaria and the decrease of several key species such as buffalo.
We had teachers give presentations to several classes on their experiences from a variety of educational research expeditions, including PolarTREC and Schools On Board.
On Friday, students from Brazil, Nunavut and Malaysia, together with an Antarctic marine biologist and an Elder from Inuvik in the Northwest Territories discussed the importance of the Polar Regions. The students exchanged information on what changes they have seen in terms of climate and how this impacts on their daily lives. These students now hope to continue this exchange of information in the months to come.
These are just a few of the highlights from Polar Week and we would like to thank everyone who participated and for sharing their stories and pictures with us, all of which can now be found on our Polar Week Stories page.