Polar Week: Reflections on UKPN Festivals
Background to festivals
The last 2 years have been somewhat uncertain with the pandemic, but the UK Polar Network (UKPN) festivals team have been busy as ever organising online events, as well as gradually returning to in-person ones. There are multiple reasons for UKPN hosting festivals, including delivering scientific communication to the general public and providing a platform to early career researchers to develop their networks and experience.
UKPN at the National Maritime Museum
In October 2021, coordinators Chloe and Connor organised a festival facilitated by the National Maritime Museum (NMM) in Greenwich, London, with around 10 UKPN volunteers delivering science talks, hosting workshops and guessing where the Titanic sank over a 4-day period. The talks included the volunteers discussing their career as a researcher and polar impacts in a changing climate, with workshops incorporating polar adaptions, glacier flow (cornflour and water!) and dressing up as a polar scientist in field kit.
Each day started at around 9 am and ended at 4 pm with events running simultaneously. At any one time, the UKPNs 3D polar maps were being adored on the ‘Great Map’ section of the museum, while downstairs talks were taking place, glaciers constructed and animals were being forged by children with some rather interesting adaptions! Seeing the children engaged with the events left us with a ‘this is why we do this’ kind of moment and hopefully, some will remember their experience and be encouraged to continue the passion we saw over the 4 days.
This was our first in-person event since the pandemic struck and we received fantastic feedback from the museum saying visitors returned each day for our activities, bolstering their numbers as well as increasing our visibility to the general public. It would be remiss of us to highlight this event without a mention of our fantastic volunteers who developed materials and ideas prior to the event, as well as delivering the content. We had a range of people, including undergraduate and postgraduate students, PhD and postdoctoral researchers and teachers. For a lot of our volunteers, it was their first experience delivering outreach and they took to it like a duck to water! The reason we’re mentioning this is because we offer volunteering positions all year round to help with science festivals and if you’re interested, please do get in touch and/or keep an eye out on our mailing list for opportunities.
Upcoming festivals for UKPN
Just recently, we hosted 3 online events over 2 days at the Cardiff Science Festival in February 2022. In June of this year, we’re headed down to the Cheltenham Science Festival to deliver 5 polar workshops to both school and home-schooled children, including albedo experiments, Antarctic food webs and a changing Arctic.
Due to the success of the NMM event, we are currently working on making the event an annual one where UKPN can utilise the fantastic space of the museum and have a permeant base for delivering outreach, so stay tuned!
Some of the previous events we have hosted activities at:
- British Science Festivals (Birmingham, Aberdeen Newcastle)
- Regional Science Festivals (Dundee, Southampton, Cardiff, Edinburgh)
- Blue Dot Festival
- World of Music Arts and Dance
Get in touch
We strongly encourage organisations who are interested in UKPN delivering outreach to their audience to get in touch with us (festivals@polarnetwork.org). As said previously, our volunteers are often the highlight for both the festival and the general public delivering superb scientific communication, so if you are interested in any opportunities, once again get in touch with us, we would love to hear from you!
Arctic sessions of MaresEdu conference 30 October
Join us next week at thr Marine Research and Education conference (online) that has a strong Arctic focus this year, see the sessions details below:
- Special session on the UN Decade of Ocean Science with a focus on the Arctic region
The session will feature guest presentations from Dr. Grigorii G. Akhmanov (UNESCO-MSU), Dr. Vladimir Ryabinin (IOC-UNESCO Executive Secretary), Dr. Sandy Starkweather (Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks), Christian Riisager-Simonsen (Danish Centre for Marine Research), and Evgeniia Kostianaia (Center for Coordination of Ocean Research, P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology), followed by the group discussions focusing on one of the seven key societal outcomes of the Decade and their implementation in a context of the Arctic region.
For more details please visit https://globalsessions2020.maresedu.com/un_decade_of_ocean_science
Event registration form: https://forms.gle/ZHnJFD6E5QSQxdnMA
2. UK-Russia joint session on marine expeditions in the Arctic
Understanding Marine Biology and Biogeochemistry of the Changing Arctic Ocean: CAO and Russian Arctic marine research programmes. This session will discuss on-going projects in the Arctic such as the UK/Germany Changing Arctic Ocean Programme (CAO) and comparable Russian marine research programmes to provide a platform for improving UK-Russia bilateral science cooperation. There is also an opportunity to present an e-poster to highlight your own Arctic research as a part of this session.Registration form: https://forms.gle/KivdXkojhLFdGpbS8
APECS International Online Conference
Registration is now open for audience members to participate in the APECS International Online Conference 2020 on 20 May!
How to register?
Please register separately for each session of the conference you wish to attend. The detailed conference programme including all abstracts and links for session registration can be found in the APECS Online Conference website: https://www.apecs.is/events/upcoming-event-highlights/apecs-international-online-conference-2020.html
We hope to see you there!
ASSW / AOS Online - Registration open!
The online Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) launches tomorrow followed by the Arctic Observing Summit (AOS)!
The ASSW is an international assembly convened by the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), fostering communication and collaboration between international policymakers, scientists, indigenous people, businesses and NGOs in discussing and addressing key Arctic issues.
This year event will be held online on 27 March - 2 April, and registration is currently live and open to everybody.
Key links:
- Full programme available here: https://www.assw2020.is/program/science
- Arctic Observing Science agenda: https://aos2020agenda.org/march-31/
- Poster session: https://aos2020agenda.org/posters/
- Registration: https://www.assw2020.is/registration
Most of the events will be held in Zoom and you can find detailed guidelines on how to use this platform for ASSW/AOS here: https://aos2020agenda.org/how-to-join/
We in UKPN are glad to be involved in different parts of the event this year, invite you to join us and are looking forward to connecting with the world-wide Arctic community!
A Polar Pint
Tickets are now live to our Polar Pint of Science events:
In collaboration with Pint of Science and supported by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust as part of their Antarctica In Sight programme, come and enjoy an evening of Arctic and Antarctic celebration. There’ll be a quick-fire quiz with a variety of prizes, so make sure to bring some knowledgeable friends!
Writing Successful Proposals: a guide for ECRs
Don't miss our upcoming workshop!
The UK Polar Network will be holding a workshop at the Arctic Sciences conference in Loughborough in September. We are offering an optional social media for conferences session on the evening of the 10th, a morning workshop on proposal writing, and a free lunch. Don't forget to register before 8th August.
For more information on the UK Arctic Science Conference, click here
