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  1. Arctic Competition – are you ready for third edition?
  2. Plenty of lessons to choose from!
  3. Polarpedia keeps getting better

1. Arctic Competition – are you ready for third edition?

The third Arctic competition is now open and the EDU-ARCTIC consortium invites students and their teachers from schools across Europe and outside to enter the competition.

Your task is to construct a proposal for a research project or an innovation project relevant to the Arctic. Teams: teacher + one or two students from many countries will compete. The lucky winners of the competition will win a six-day-long Arctic expedition to Svanhovd in Northern Norway, or to the Faroe Islands.  It’s a great opportunity to take part in actual research conducted at these locations!

READ THE RULES

Remember – the deadline of sending summaries is 23rd January, 11:00 am UTC.

2. Plenty of lessons to choose from!

Learn all about:

reindeer

3. Polarpedia keeps getting better

Have you noticed little blue cap-icons next to terms?

cap icons

They indicate that the term is related to an online lesson. Now you can find them easily - links are posted as "related sources" on Polarpedia.

polarpedia glaciation

You may find all the recordings on Youtube - subscribe to our channel and don't miss any new videos.

Recordings of lessons are also available on our website, divided into categories, like in Polarpedia.

Details
  1. Arctic Competition – read new rules for the 3rd edition
  2. ‘Thematic courses’ and regular lessons – new topics, new ideas!
  3. 1000 EDU-ARCTIC teachers on board  – and counting!

1. Arctic Competition – read new rules for 3rd edition

Here we go again! The 3rd Edition of the Arctic Competition starts on 23rd of October 2018. Project summaries must be uploaded before 23rd of January 2019 at 11 am UTC, whereas the full proposals from teams invited to the second stage must be submitted before 14th of March 2019 at 11 am UTC.

In the 2019 edition 4 teams may win a polar expedition to one of two arctic stations: 2 teams will go to Northern Norway (NIBIO Svanhovd) and another 2 teams will go to the Faroe Islands.

Make sure to check NEW RULES – we followed your suggestions and there are some changes, for example – teams can consist of 1 or 2 students accompanied by a teacher.

READ MORE

ac2019

2. ‘Thematic courses’ and regular lessons – new topics, new ideas!

Don’t miss our thematic courses - comprehensive series of complementary topics. Regular meeting and fixed hours are perfect for curricular and extracurricular  activities, like science clubs etc

Note that after time shift, UTC hours will change in order to keep local hours fixed. Check calendar for details.

Don’t forget to enrol for all types of online lessons:

Face the secret invasion of alien species (24 Oct, 7 am),  learn all about citizen science (25 Oct, 7.30 am), find out how satellite photos are made (31 Oct, 12 pm, part of Engineering and technology),  meet Vikings (6 Nov, 9 am) and Saami people (8 Nov, 10 am, part of People in the Arctic); admire Aurora (9 Nov, 9 am),  explore sixth mass extinction (15 Nov, 10 am) and check if we live in total CHAOS. (21 Nov, 8 am).

3. 1000 teachers – and counting!

We are happy to announce we have 1000 teachers  from 56 countries on board! As promised, teacher No ‘1000’ + four other teachers will receive our EDU-ARCTIC backpacks. The lucky ones are:

  • Anna from Moscow, Russia
  • Sverre from Vadsø, Norway
  • Alexandru from Piatra-Neamt, Romania
  • Natasa from Kikinda, Serbia
  • Amaia from Elorrio, Spain

It’s great to see our EDU-ARCTIC team growing!

training poster

Details
  1. Amazing news for new school year!
  2. Join our brand new ‘Thematic courses’
  3. What is new on Polarpedia?
  4. New webinars
  5. Arctic Adventure 2018 – winners’ story!

1. Amazing news for new school year!

Welcome after summer break, we hope you are full of energy! As we already announced in July, EDU-ARCTIC project will continue till the end of 2017/2018 school year. Now, we are very happy to officially share another good news:

THIRD EDITION of ARCTIC COMPETITION!!!

Since first and second editions evoked so much interest and resulted in amazing projects, we obtained approval of European Commission, so you can still win a trip to Arctic research station! We will announce detailed rules soon. Stay tuned!

arctic competition

2. Join our brand new ‘Thematic courses’

As you can check on our youtube channel or website , our lessons can be cathegorized into general topics. We are proposing a brand new type of lessons – thematic courses. To start with:

  • Engineering and technology (Tuesdays, 11:00 UTC) will be dedicated to modern techniques of scientific research and environment management;
  • The Arctic, people’s land (Thursdays, 9:00 UTC) – we will learn about indigenous people, economy, history of exploration and other ‘human’ and ‘social’ aspects of the region;
  • Mistery of glaciers (Wednesday, 11:00 UTC) will cover all information about how glaciers are formed, their importance and dynamics;
  • Citizen science (Tuesdays, 07:00 UTC) will explain how citizen science works, with all major environment elements observed within Monitoring System.

Each course offers a comprehensive series of complementary topics. We hope it will allow you to plan your participation in advance, and include EDU-ARCTIC activities both into curricular and extracurricular activities, like science clubs etc. Check our calendar-they are marked in yellow. Check each thematic course for full programme with dates and topics.

Special challenge: If you participate in at least 50% of lessons in a course, you will receive a special certificate!!!

3. What is new on Polarpedia?

Polarpedia is gaining more and more terms, translations – and users. We used your requests and suggestions and proposed some modifications. Now from main page you can get to full language versions, simply by clicking a flag. Also, we decided not to limit our „hydrosphere’ terms to seas and oceans, therefore we have new cathegory – Water resources. Finally, we encourage you to GAMIFY your classroom with various educational games and quizzes.

4. New webinars

We continue our regular webinars, with new topics, new activities and some excellent guest lecturers. Learn how mushrooms help us , listen to a fascinating story of maps , meet polar bear – and penguin. Check if you know all the weirdest Arctic fun facts , visit Polish Polar Station Hornsund, get familiar with tardigrades- ultimate survivors.

Do not miss webinars within thematic courses:

5. Arctic Adventure 2018 – winners’ story!

With both teams now back from northern trips, we can say for sure: it was an amazing experience! WInners from Greece and Spain were very busy in NIBIO station with collecting and analyzing samples, snorkelling, fishing and hiking. READ MORE

Winners from Poland and Spain visited Polish Polar Station Hornsund, Svalbard. On their trip the group had an opportunity to see and touch various equipment like auto-sampler and meteorological station, and get a closer look at some measurements carried out on site. Nothing was too challenging for them: neither swimming close to the Korberbreen glacier (in the background the third highest peak of Svalbard – Hornsundtind) in Helly Hansen suits, nor sailing under the Muhlbacherbreen and Peierlbreen glaciers. Their bravery was awarded: they admired whales and experienced calving of a glacier! READ MORE

You can write your own Arctic story: join Arctic Competition!

final

Details

This passing school year has been very intense, challenging and brought us lots of satisfaction.

We would like to thank you all for being so active. We have accomplished a lot: online lessons, gained new participants and developed new activities, including our Monitoring System App – remember, students can report from any location and during the summer holiday!

Here is a little summary of the past school years Edu-Arctic activites and accomplishments:

Summary of the past school years Edu-Arctic activites and accomplishments

Don’t forget our POSTER challenge: download, print and display it in your school or/and classroom. If you send us a picture of you / your students with a visible poster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), we will publish it on our Facebook profile. The authors of the 3 photos with the biggest number of likes will receive backpacks with the EDU-ARCTIC logo from us.

The best is yet to come – we have lots of interesting and exciting plans for the next school year.

Enjoy the SUMMER and the HOLIDAYS. Looking very much forward to seeing you in September!

have a great summer

Details
  1. Arctic Competition results: record interest, brilliant ideas!
  2. Monitoring system mobile app available for public
  3. New online lessons
  4. A little gift for our active schools

Arctic Competition results: record interest, brilliant ideas!

We’ve announced the six winning teams of the second edition of the Arctic Competition. What a race! It was extremely difficult to choose the best participants, as 160 school teams from 19 countries entered the competition. 12 best projects from Greece, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Faroe Islands and Russia were invited for the final stage – online interviews with international jury.

The prize for the winners is to become Arctic explorers on a 2-week-long adventurous Arctic Expedition in August to either Hornsund in Svalbard or to Svanhovd in Northern Norway.

Our brilliant winners are:

  • Judith Plaza Ortuño and Jordi Escofet Miró from Terrassa in Spain
  • Glyceria Mpouki and Stelios Anastassopoulos from Karditsa in Greece
  • Kacper Markiewicz and Eliza Golańska from Oława in Poland
  • Triantafyllia Vaiopoulou and Stelios Anastassopoulos from Karditsa in Greece
  • Pablo Gómez Toribio and Francisco José Gómez-Senent from Orihuela in Spain
  • Javier Sánchez-Bonilla Martínez and Jose Francisco Romero Garcia from Pozuelo De Alarcon in Spain.

Monitoring system mobile app available for public

We’ve completed testing phase of our mobile app dedicated to EDU-ARCTIC monitoring system. Now it’s officially available for the public. Do not miss it in GOOGLE PLAY.

Remember, both teachers and students can use it; students can also win great prizes. Collect EDU-COINS, send us photos and share your thoughts!

google play

New online lessons

Visit Polish Polar Station Hornsund and learn all about Day vs night in the Arctic, see Iceland – the land of air and water, meet The Arctic-people’s land, explore the world of Volcanoes and humans. Check, if geoparks may contribute to nature conservation, and find more about the Polar Explorer Day.

Finally, listen to our special guest scientist talking about Snowball Earth.

A little gift for our active schools

The end of second school year with EDU-ARCTIC project is approaching. It’s high time you show off a little – we prepared a special POSTER (A3 format) for you to downloaad, print and display in your school or/and classroom.

And an additional surprise: if you send us a picture of your / students with a visible poster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), we will publish it on our Facebook profile. The authors of the 3 photos that will get the biggest number of likes will receive backpacks with the EDU-ARCTIC logo from us.

NOTE that by sending us photo you agree that it’s posted on our website/social media, with recognizable images of persons on photo!

poster

Details

Why use games in a classroom?

For many reasons! Because it’s fun, engaging and very efficient. While playing games, students develop a variety of connections with the content and form positive memories of learning. However, it can be sometimes quite difficult to implement game-based learning and ‘gamification’ techniques to the everyday teaching.

This is why we launched a whole new category on Polarpedia – Games and Quizzes. Here you can find a variety of activities: online games (crosswords, matching games, wordsearch), quizzes (kahoot etc.), worksheets related to EDU-ARCTIC lessons, experiment scenarios, boardgames, quests and mobile apps.

Most of them are available in English, some are in Polish, Russian, Italian. This cathegory will be developed constantly.

So engage your students, play, print, download and install – enjoy our ready to use, Arctic-related resources.

If you want to contribute with your materials based on Polarpedia, online lessons etc. Please write to us This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., we’ll upload them with your credits.

jigsaw

Details
  1. New lessons, new topics, new ideas
  2. Share your EDU-ARCTIC story and become the Feature Of The Week
  3. EDU-ARCTIC and STEM discovery Week
  4. Happy Easter and have a nice spring break!

1. New lessons, new topics, new ideas

We continue our cycle dedicated to phenology - learn all about phenophases, monitoring of plants, insects and birds. As always, we propose new topics and repetitions of popular lessons.

Learn all about ocean currents, visit Saami people, find out where does mercury and lead come from. Meet Tardigrades-ultimate survivors. Join us in time-travel to pay a visit to Pleistocene megafauna. Get familiar with Arctic hydrology, enter the world of volcanoes and face challenges of settlements in Svalbard.

Remember you can get an overview of lessons in our calendar.

2. Share your EDU-ARCTIC story and become the Feature Of The Week

Are you an active EDU-ARCTIC teacher?

Do your students participate in online lessons? Are some of them “KAHOOT MASTERS?”

Do you use Polarpedia to create your own materials?

Tell us your story! We would like to share teachers’ feedback on the EDU-ARCTIC website. Send us your experience, photos from the classroom and of your students and your ideas on using the project in your school practice.

We will select good contributions and publish the FEATURE OF THE WEEK on our main website!

We’re waiting for your content: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

3. EDU-ARCTIC and STEM discovery Week

We are happy to announce that we support STEM DISCOVERY WEEK 2018 (23-29 April 2018), a joint international initiative that invites projects, organisations and schools across Europe and around the world, to celebrate careers and studies in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). SAY YES TO STEM, join an initiative, participate in science-fun events!

STEM Discovery Week 2018

4. Happy Easter and have a nice spring break!

Long –awaited springtime has arrived! It’s a great moment for you and your students to become a part of Monitoring System and submit weekly reports with the use of our MOBILE APP. And, as Easter is approaching, EDU-ARCTIC team would like to wish you a great family time.

Let this Spring bring new joy, hope and energy to every single one of you.

All the best!

happy easter from EDU-ARCTIC

Details
  1. Brand new EDU-ARCTIC Monitoring system MOBILE APP!!!
  2. Arctic Competition: record interest and first results
  3. Enrol for new lessons
  4. Polarpedia in progress

1. Brand NEW Monitoring system MOBILE APP!!!

During EDUCATORS’ FORA teachers shared their ideas how to engage pupils and make them more active. We are proud and excited to announce our MONITORING SYSTEM MOBILE APPLICATION is ready for downloading on smartphones/tablets. Both registered teachers and other users are welcome to use it. You will be able to add photos from your observations and submit reports directly from you mobile device or on portal, as before. However the main idea is to encourage STUDENTS to report from their locations (home, during holidays etc.). They will be able to add photos, gain EDU-COINS, and exchange them for unique prizes: backpacks, photo albums, jigsaws, magnets, wallpapers. Encourage your students to use it – and participate in test phase till the end of February.

Please note that, as was also suggested during EDUCATORS’ FORA, we added 2 new plants for reporting, more suitable for southern regions of Europe: dandelion and black alder.

Download the app for Android or IOS and give us your feedback on EDU-FORUM or via e-mail!

landscape book

2. Arctic Competition: record interest and first results

On Friday 2nd February, the EDU-ARCTIC Consortium closed the first stage of the Arctic Competition. In total 160 teams from many countries in Europe and across the world submitted projects for the competition. A dedicated jury evaluated all these projects in order to find the 50 projects that will continue to stage 2 of the competition. The selected projects were prepared in 13 countries (Belgium, Faroe Islands, Germany, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom). At the second stage, full projects will be evaluated on originality of the concept, clear description and feasibility. Best 12 teams will be invited to online interviews.

For more guidance on preparation of full project, see news on our website.

3. Enrol for our new lessons

We’re repeating some very popular lessons: Tsunami risk in the North Atlantic Ocean (7.02), Birth and death of an ocean (7.02), 130.000 years of climate change in Borðoyavík, Faroe Islands (9.02), Adaptations of Arctic mammals to a life on the edge (9.02).

You can also find out if we’re on the edge of Sixth Mass Extinction (13.02), learn the secrets of Arctic Plankton (21.02), swim along Ocean Currents (7.03), find out if living is toxic (15.03), join a wonderful journey of Great Migrations (16.03).

On your special request we also repeat the lesson about Northern lights (26.02).

As you know we introduced some limitations in enrolling for online lessons in order to maximize their availability for all the teachers. However, some of you mentioned that 3 lessons available for enrolments are not enough. For your comfort, we changed that; now you can be enrolled for 5 lessons at the same time. We hope it will be more comfortable and will allow you to plan your activities in advance.

Remember you can get an overview of lessons in our calendar.

4. Polarpedia in progress

We already have 285 polar and STEM-related terms on Polarpedia. Learn why smoltification is such an exquisite process, what is the role of cryptochromes or what is the difference between convergent and divergent plate boundary.

Did you know that for now there are almost 20 teachers contributing to Polarpedia? They are translating Polarpedia terms into Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Macedonian, Romanian and Serbian. Some are engaging their students too.

Thank you for this effort. If you want to participate, contact us: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..