'People' Polar Day September 24, 2008,

From Karen Edwards

Hi everyone!

As part of the upcoming 'People' Polar Day September 24, 2008, we are trying to secure teacher/classroom/school interest in participating in the 'People at the Poles' Polar Day educational activity.

The activity is still being developed but the concept is to engage Arctic and non-Arctic classrooms in a global discussion of the changes (climatic, socio-economic, environmental, health, etc.) being observed in the Arctic regions. All classrooms would represent their discussions by submitting a video, poem, paper, song, etc and post it to a web interface. Web postings and discussions would begin with Arctic classroom submissions, the week before Polar Day, and the week of Polar Day the non-Arctic classrooms would download the Arctic postings and use those as the foundation for their discussions and post the impressions and reactions back to the web interface. This of course could seed a sustainable conversation well beyond the Polar Day.

Again, this is all still draft BUT it provides you with an outline to talk to teachers and schools in your region. More details will develop in the coming weeks but by then many of the schools may be closed. Securing schools now is only meant to guarantee participation on the Polar Day and does NOT preclude other schools from participating at that time. Further details will be available at the end of this month and will be circulated through all of these networks. .

If you know any schools/teachers in your region who are champions and you feel may be interested in being key participants for this coming September, please feel free to circulate this email to them and get them to contact me directly.

Thank you for your help in engaging global classrooms in this discussion. We are very excited to see the outcomes of 'People at the Poles' Polar Day.

Sincerely,

Karen Edwards

Coordinator

Canadian IPY Secretariat

Coordinator