In collaboration with IPY New Zealand Youth steering comitee
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Education & Outreach:
The Frozen Five expedition has made education about the Arctic one of
its primary aims. As scientists, we have realised that there is a wide
rift between researchers and the general public. It's all too easy to
talk science with fellow colleagues but, if no-one understands it,
what's the point? There is nothing duller than a boring lecture,
especially if the sun is shining outside. This long-term dilemma is
especially critical at the present time when there is an unprecedented
demand for Earth Scientists with the facing climate change issues. It
is the current high school generation, students aged from 11 to 18
yrs, that will have to understand the Earth's systems in order to be
able to live on this planet. And it is precisely this generation that
the Frozen Five focus on, aiming to:
- Educate the students (as well as the general public) about the role of the Arctic in the global climate system and its implications
- Demonstrate that not all scientists wear white coats and sit in unorganised and overflowing offices
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The timing of this project couldn't have been greater, perfectly
coinciding with the start of the International Polar Year (IPY).
This massive undertaking of the Earth's scientists aims
to carry the flag of the International Geophysical Year, last held in
1957-1958, a project that involved more than 80,000 scientists from 67
different countries. The aim of the IPY is to make the general public
aware of the issues facing the polar regions, and improve our
scientific understanding on how the polar regions operate, especially
on the feedback mechanisms linking these areas with global climate.
One of the major projects under the wide IPY umbrella is the Youth
Steering Committee (YSC), a global movement
amongst budding young polar scientists to form a world-wide network of
interested students and researchers that will greatly facilitate
future collaboration. |
The Frozen Five expedition is involved in New
Zealand's YSC project, entitle Polar Contests, that will involve a
polar-themed competition to run in New Zealand's high schools
throughout 2007. Preservation of educational materials, our
expedition's motion picture documentary and the networking system will
ensure a legacy of this project well past the 2007-2009 time period of
the IPY.
As well as perfect timing, the Frozen Five project has the perfect
team. Full of energy, the 5 scientists stand for what is arguably the
most important aspect in modern-day science, multi-disciplinary
research. The times of simple one-sided studies are gone, with complex
systems only understood through collaboration between the different
fields of the Earth's sciences. A climatologist, for example, is
dependant on geologists to provide an idea of past climatic
fluctuations. Geologists, in turn, depend on climatologists to
understand solid earth-atmosphere interactions. On our team, we have
the expertise of glaciologists, climatologists, atmospheric
scientists, geologists and even an economics student to keep us within
budget. Our research interests, mostly formed during the "Svalbard
year" but extended to present projects, focus on the effects of
climate change on various global processes, including sea-ice deformation, dissociation of
gas hydrates at high latitudes, ozone depletion over the mid-latitudes
and CO2, CH4 and N2O fluxes through snow pack in northern Sweden.
Through the Frozen Five expedition, we wish to pass our enthusiasm of
the Arctic science to the younger generation, the 11-18 year olds that
will have to deal with these upcoming problems. We believe that our
project will motivate them to become scientists and strongly augment
their interest in the polar regions. Through presentations at high
schools located throughout the globe, as well as talks given to the
general public, we will raise awareness of the problems the Arctic is
facing and provide ways that individual people can help out. At the
same time, we will be able to demonstrate the fact that science is
actually a pretty interesting, worthwhile and noteworthy pastime.
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