cc: IPY Community Google Groups

1. IPO Activities

While many researchers, particularly in North America, continue their IPY activities, Dave and Melissa in Cambridge, Karen in Edmonton, plus IPY partners in Norway, Germany, Australia, the UK and the USA, all work busily to coordinate and arrange IPY activities (see Polar Week and Olso 2010, below), to gather from hundreds of contributers materials for books and reports, to arrange IPY sessions and events at important international conferences, and to thank all the IPY supporters.  Most of these continuing activities, and in particular the activities of the IPY data management and education and outreach committees, depend on volunteer enthusiams and national contributions.  We thank Canada, in particular, for its support of meetings of the IPY data and outreach committees over the next two months.  We thank the UK, the USA, Norway, Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands for their continuing support to the IPO.

2. IPY Reports

We solicit reports from IPY Projects and from IPY National Committees. 

Each IPY Project should submit a summary report, and each IPY National Committee should submit a national summary report.  Several Projects and National Committees have already submitted reports, or have alerted the IPO to summary, assessment and report processes underway.  We hope that Project and National reports arrive by March 2010.  All printed materials sent to IPO will become cataloged and archived as part of the permanent collection at Scott Polar Research Institute.  All digital materials (film, presentations, digital reports, image collections, html documents) will go into the digital library system at the University of Alberta and, from there, also into the permanent collection at Scott Polar.  We have provided guidance on how to upload these materials in several previous reports.  Use the Archiving link on www.ipy.org.  For more information about reports and report contents, please see the August IPY report. 

3. October Polar Week (Oct 5-9)

October Polar Week (October 5-9th) is fast approaching and we are currently developing an activity flyer for release and soliciting international partnerships with schools, youth, museums, science centers and community clubs to host IPY activities during the week. The theme for this Polar Week is What Happens at the Poles Affects Us All and has four main goals:

• To expand the IPY global networks of motivated and enthused educators;
• To raise the visibility of polar issues and polar organizations;
• To enhance the development of polar science educational materials; and
• To develop long-term education and outreach partnerships for polar science.

Please keep your eye on the IPO website http://www.ipy.org/index.php?option=com_k2&id=1113&view=item&Itemid=47 for details as they develop. If you have any events planned during October Polar Week and would like to connect to the international IPY community please contact Karen Edwards directly @  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

4. Update from APECS

• Registration is now open for the IPY International Early Career Researcher Symposium in Victoria, BC, Canada in December. Visit www.apecs.is/victoria09 for more information. The workshop is funded in part by the Canadian Federal IPY Program and we are looking for other organizations to help sponsor coffee-breaks and the icebreaker - contact Jenny Baeseman at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you are interested.

• APECS recently launched the Polar Literature Discussion Forum where you can chat about the latest articles in your field or from your field site. The APECS Virtual Poster Session project is also open, so those of you with posters just taking up space on your hard drive, put them to use by contributing to the Virtual Poster Session. APECS is also coordinating an International Polar Lecture Series to be held at campuses around the world during the next IPY Polar Week 4-9 October, more information to come shortly.

• APECS, together with the University of the Arctic, UNIS and IPY Norway hosted the first IPY Polar Field School in the Arctic this summer. Read all the great blogs contributed by the students, watch the video, meet the participants and look at the great things they learned in Svalbard at http://www.apecs.is/svalbard2009.

5. Upcoming IPY meetings and AGU sessions

September 29 - October 1: International IPY Data Management meeting in Ottawa, Ontario (CANADA) to allow data managers / coordinators to report and assess what has been achieved over the last two years and to discuss challenges and opportunities regarding the stewardship of data collected during the International Polar Year.  For more information see: http://classic.ipy.org/start/index.php/forums/viewthread/116/ or contact Scott Tomlinson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Mark Parsons ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

October 2 to 5, 2009: Communities of Change - Building an IPY Legacy, 9th ACUNS International Student Conference on Northern Studies and Polar Regions, Yukon College - Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.  See http://www.communitiesofchange.ca.

October 26-28: IPY EOC Committee will meet in Canada to review and stimulate progress on the new Polar Resource Book, to plan for the March Polar Week and Oslo 2010, and to develop long-term plans and partnerships for polar EOC activities.  Contact Karen Edwards ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Dave Carlson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) for more details.

December 4 to 8: IPY International Early Career Researcher Symposium in Victoria, BC, Canada - see APECS update, above. 

December 14 to 18, 2009: AGU Fall Meeting- We have a Union Session on Education and Outreach: U15 - 'Toward Environmental Literacy with Examples from IPY' and an IPY session in the Cryosphere Section: C24 - 'The International Polar Year'.  We know that IPY participants can submit abstracts to a wide range of polar and cryosphere sessions at AGU, but we hope you will consider submitting some of your best work to these IPY sessions.  In the Cryosphere IPY session we can often feature a much wider range of topics than one gets in a specialty session.  In the Union session we can show the amazing variety and quality of IPY education and outreach activities.  For both sessions, but particularly for the Union session, the more good abstracts we get, the better chance we have of obtaining oral presentation sessions at favourable times.

6. Update from Oslo 2010 Planning Process

The next OSC steering committee meeting is planned for September 17th in Oslo. Updates on the planning process include:

• A preliminary programme is available on the website: http://www.ipy-osc.no/article/2009/1246203426.73
• Planning continues for an associated Polar Festival and Polar Cinema.
• The participation of teachers and indigenous partners remains an important priority, and a good opportunity for prominent national, corporate or institutional support.

Please keep watching the website as the program continues to evolve. If you have any questions please feel free to contact Dave Carlson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Kristen Ulstein ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

7. Call for new stories and blogs for www.ipy.org

We continue to feature fresh IPY research and polar news on www.ipy.org.  If you have IPY research or outreach programs underway, or have an IPY story to share, please contact Dave Carlson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Karen Edwards ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).