LICHEN focuses on the languages and cultures of the northern circumpolar region. Faced with minority languages, governments have pursued policies of assimilation. This has applied to indigenous languages in Canada, to Gaelic and Scots in Scotland, and to Finnic minority languages in the Circumpolar region. The aim of the project is to create an electronic framework for the collection, management, online display, and exploitation of existing corpora of the languages of the circumpolar regions, which is also applicable to other corpora that represent regional, social and other varieties of languages.

ICASS VI occurred in Nuuk, Greenland 22 - 26 August, 2008. The theme was “Arctic Social Sciences: Prospects for the International Polar Year 2007-2008 Era and Beyond”. The Conference website provides excellent links to abstracts and a solid overview of the breadth of social science and humanities research in IPY.

Investigative Scientific Antarctic Voyages for Youth RSV-INTREPID plans to conduct two independent 40 day investigative science expeditions to Antarctica involving up to 120 students mentored by 80 young post-graduate scientists. The multi-disciplinary scientific program, tasked by a consortium of scientific agencies and universities, is consonant with the six IPY research themes and will consist of a variety of challenging ship-board and shore-based projects.

“Meltdown: Global Warning” is a 3D/2D National Geographic film for giant screen theaters worldwide. Using state-of-the-art computer animation to bring audiences on a wild ride to the far ends of the Earth and into the future, we'll meet scientists at the cutting edge of climate science and come face-to-face with the future effects of climate change.

Extending IPY Themes to the Undergraduate Earth System Science Education Community "The NASA/USRA Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century program (ESSE 21) engages interdisciplinary college and university teams to develop courses, curricula and degree programs that consider air, water, land and life processes on Earth. IPY research on polar processes will enrich ESSE 21 learning materials with relevant and compelling content that explores the global impact of polar science. "

The eight arctic countries have been working together to evaluate the source and impacts on humans and the environment of contaminants (eg. PCBs, DDT, mercury etc.) since the early 1990s. Several reports released by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) have documented the distant sources of these contaminants and outlined the human and evironmental concerns. This meeting in Arctic Canada during the fall of 2008 will outline the state of knowldege on the human health concerns related to these enviromental contaminants.