Polar Outreach Catalogue

For International Polar Year (IPY), the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC) created an extensive and successful outreach program which focused on elementary and high-school students in Canada with special emphasis on students in the Arctic region. The first component of this outreach program was the Northern Experience Program, which brought 15 high-school students and 6 teachers from across Canada on an 11-day educational excursion to Resolute and Eureka Weather Station, Nunavut in April 2009. The participating students and teachers were winners of a nation-wide essay contest in which they were asked to write about climate change and its impacts in the Canadian Arctic. In collaboration with Qarmartalik School in Resolute, CANDAC delivered a comprehensive program which covered a wide variety of Arctic-related topics. From sharing a traditional meal with community elders to learning about the Arctic atmosphere from CANDAC scientists and visiting the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) at Eureka, the participants had the educational experience of a lifetime! Also during IPY, our outreach program brought CANDAC scientists to schools in the most Northern parts of Nunavut to present workshops on topics such as climate change, ozone depletion, and weather. CANDAC researchers, along with the outreach coordinator, delivered these workshops to students of all ages in six remote communities in Nunavut. CANDAC also implemented a cooperative education program for Northern college students. Two students successfully completed 3-month positions by working as Assistant Arctic Research Officers at PEARL.