We all talk about the weather, make our daily plans based on forecasts and complain when bad weather spoils our plans. A person who professionally studies the atmosphere is a meteorologist. During this lesson we will learn how looks the work of meteorologists, what instruments they use and how they identify cloud types. “Understanding Clouds” is the theme of World Meteorological Day 2017 that we celebrated on 23 March. This topic highlights the enormous importance of clouds for weather, climate and water resources.

Teacher: Tomasz Wawrzyniak

The last ice age on Earth ended about 10.000 years ago. How do ice ages develop? And how do we find out how a landscape changes during an ice age? Will we have another ice age sometimes?

The lesson will be broadcasted from the Faroe Islands in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean.

We will hear about ice ages and we will look at observations from field work carried out by geoscientists. There are no glaciers on the Faroe Islands today however we see beautiful examples of how the ice changed a low relief land area into steep mountains, deep valleys and narrow fiords.

Teacher: Lis Mortensen

There are areas in Europe where brown bears are permanently abundant and numbers have risen in some areas, such as Northern Europe. Gathering information on the number of bears in an area is challenging and difficult: the animals are shy and avoid humans, the area is not inhabited by humans who could report bear activity or signs of activity or the area may be quite inaccessible. Hair trapping is a noninvasive sampling technique to pluck hairs from bears. Bears or other organisms do not get hurt with this method. The hairs collected are utilized for genetic analysis and allow individual identification of the animals. From that it is possible to estimate the number of bears living in an area. The method can also deliver interesting and funny pictures and movies, when such traps are equipped with a wildlife camera. Some bears even take selfies.

Teacher: Alexander Kopatz

All of us has seen satellite photographs - even if only when looking for our own home on Google maps. Did you ever wonder where did they come from? How does a satellite looks or works? You will have these questions answered during this lesson. Ever since we have learned how to send satellites into space we use them to take photos. Scientists, tourists, spies and cartographers are using images from space, often unaware of science and technology behind these pictures. Let's take a peek behind the scenes of space technologies, physics and geoinformatics to grasp basic concepts of how are satellite images made.

Teacher: Julian Podgórski

We are witnessing enormous climate change taking place in the Arctic and everywhere else. The world as we know is disappearing. What will the future of our planet look like? This is one of the questions nobody has an answer to. But can we prepare ourselves - and the entire humankind - for whatever comes next? During the presentation I want to talk about the Arctic, the changes taking place there and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the 21st century Noah Ark prepared for a doomsday. How to preserve the genetic material of plants that we cannot survive without? Why is it so important to collect seeds? Why was Svalbard chosen for a global seed vault? What does the Svalbard Vault look like? Figure it out on 16th June 2017. I will connect from Longyearbyen, about 5 km from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

The lesson will be conducted by our SPECIAL GUEST: Dr Dominika Dąbrowska, who lives and works at Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago, in the largest but still tiny Norwegian town of Longyearbyen. She studied physics at the Wroclaw University of Technology, Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg and the Universidad de Granada in Spain. She also got the 2nd master degree in meteorology and geophysics from the Universidad de Granada, then a doctorate in the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, also in Granada. The Arctic is a magical place for her.She sta rted her adventure there in 2015 at the Polish Polar Station, Hornsund, where for a year she worked as a meteorologist. Then, she moved to Longyearbyen, where she works as a guide.

Teacher: Dominika Dąbrowska,

During this lection you will learn about, how geological mapping is done based on geological principles. Also you will see how the geology can be observed in the field. This is taught by looking at the mountain Sátan in the Faroe Islands, where a sill and a dike cross-cut the same area. Also other examples from the archipelago will be shown.

Teacher: Irena Aarberg

Development of the satellite technology has enabled us to look at our planet from a new perspective. It provides a large amount of data on spatial and temporal changes of the Earth’s environment.

During this lesson we will take a look at satellite images, explain how they are created and discuss what information can be obtained from them by an Earth scientist. We will analyze changes in the global air temperatures as well as in the carbon dioxide content. As a practical part of the webinar Students will determine the trend line for the maximum annual Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent. For this part computers will be needed.

Teacher: Katarzyna Budzińska

The climate represents meteorological conditions but averaged over long periods, typically at least 10 years. The climate is much less heterogeneous than weather, temporally and spatially. On average, we have several typical climate zones, strongly dependent on the insolation: from tropical to polar climate with and temperate climates at middle latitudes. Meteorological observations and models show that the climate has been warming up over the last five decades.

Teacher: Slimane Bekki

The webinar will start with an overview over the history of the brown bears in Norway and Sweden, including an introduction to why and how the brown bears are monitored nowadays. I will then give a thorough introduction the laboratory process of how to extract DNA from faeces samples, how to subsequently analyse the DNA and how the results from this analysis are used in scientific research.

Teacher: Julia Schregel

That might be a kind of disapointment for auto maniacs, but we don't have in mind Toyota Tundra. We will rather use such words as "biome" or "formation of plants", and travel virtually (not necessary by car) to the North to see beautiful landscapes of Arctic tundra on Spitsbergen.

Living in cold environment is a challenge, that's why some plants create a few ways of adaptation to the Arctic climate. Which one? We will see during the lesson, and learn how high are trees in Arctic forests or how many colors does tundra have in the summer.

Teacher: Dagmara Bożek-Andryszczak

This seminar is about the great fisheries in the Arctic and subarctic seas. Now these fisheries are dominated by the Arctic nations but the fishing grounds used to be exploited by many other nations before the extension of economic exclusive zones in the later part of the 20th century. The fisheries provided valuable protein and sailing experience for many great maritime countries. In this seminar it is explained why these grounds are so rich in fish and what might happen with global warming.

Teacher: Hreidar Valtysson

For ages people have been fascinated by an incredibly beautiful and vivid light show, illuminating the night sky, known as an aurora. In his Naturales Quaestiones, Roman philosopher Seneca included a story about the Northern Lights noticed once above the city of Ostia. The aurora was so bright and red, that the fire alert was raised by a cohort of the army stationing nearby.

During this lesson we will talk about the origins of an aurora. Why does it occur? What colours can we expect to see and why? What are the best places to spot it?