Polar Outreach Catalogue

In 2008, Arctic Institute of North America won a Canadian International Polar Year grant to develop a media relations program to popularize Arctic science. This project makes research in academic journals about the North more accessible to Canadian news consumers by rewriting select articles into easy-to-read formats that are then sent to media outlets across Canada. The project also has strong Internet and social media components. The Institute website was redesigned to showcase the releases, an RSS feed was added, and Facebook and Twitter accounts were created. In the summer of 2009, a new endeavour was implemented as part of the project. A science writer was hired to work as an embedded reporter at the Arctic Institute?s Kluane Lake Research Station (KLRS) in the Yukon. Each summer, the station is home to about 50 scientists and graduate students working on projects in disciplines ranging from biology to botany to zoology to geology and glaciology. The journalist spent 11 weeks at the camp interviewing researchers about their work. Resulting stories were distributed to the public using a combination of new and traditional media. This project is taking place at a time when the communication of science is increasingly important. Science has always been a driver of innovative change, but the public is becoming aware that every innovation has unintended effects.