NSF Launches New Web Portal
International Polar Year 2007-2008
The website is available at:
http://www.us-ipy.gov
The National Science Foundation has launched a portal website to provide
the general public and members of the news media with easy access to
news releases, classroom resources, listings of museum and gallery
exhibits, and catalogs of video and still images and other materials
produced or supported by the federal government as part of the U.S.
contribution to the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008.
The site, at http://www.us-ipy.gov, includes information on the IPY for
a general audience as well as basic information for scientists
interested in obtaining IPY funding from the U.S. government. New
content will be continually added to the comprehensive site.
The IPY will take place exactly 50 years after the International
Geophysical Year (IGY), a similar global scientific research endeavor
during which scientists first spent the long Antarctic winter at the
South Pole, among other accomplishments. The polar "year" will include
two calendar years to permit a full 12 months of observations in regions
where six months of extreme cold and darkness can hamper fieldwork.
In the spring of 2007, scientists from more than 100 countries will
embark on an intensive, coordinated campaign of multi-disciplinary
scientific observations, research, and analysis as part of the IPY. The
research is expected to dramatically expand our understanding of the
Arctic and Antarctic regions--including their relationship to the global
ecosystem--and to provide unprecedented insight into how societies in
high northern latitudes are coping with environmental change.
In the United States and in other countries, planning already is
underway for extended IPY scientific field campaigns as well as for
education and outreach programs for the general public.
The White House has designated NSF, which manages the U.S. Antarctic
Program and chairs the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee
(IARPC), to be the lead federal agency for the IPY. Numerous other
agencies, their scientists and grantees will also be involved in
supporting IPY research, fielding research teams, and producing
curricula and other materials for the general public about the IPY.