Polar Outreach Catalogue

The Norwegian Polar Institute received support from IPY for an education project targeting pupils from primary school through upper secondary school. The centrepiece of the project is a 64-page booklet entitled The Arctic System, published in both English and Norwegian. The booklet was sent to every school in Norway, and class sets of booklets could be ordered free of charge. Over 10 000 booklets have been distributed in Norway.With a focus on the Norwegian Arctic, the project presents the Arctic as a continuous nature system and explains why it is especially important to conduct research and environmental monitoring there. The aim of the project was to reach as broad an audience as possible and increase interest in polar research in the natural sciences.As part of the project, young artists shot videos in the field on Svalbard. The project also resulted in classroom posters, brochures, graph figures and lectures for teachers. The project launched its own website, which offers access to all of the educational materials as well as links to other informative websites about the Arctic.Researchers representing eight IPY science projects also went on a lecture tour as part of the project, primarily targeting pupils in their first year of upper secondary school. A total of over 1 500 pupils attended the lectures in Kirkenes, Alta, Tromsø, Trondheim, Bergen and Oslo.