Revisiting Arctic History

Posted on 22 September 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Christian Drury In Britain, you are never far from the legacy of empire. The recent protests as part of the wider Black Lives Matter movement have highlighted systemic inequalities in British society and the role of the British empire and slavery in forming them. This includes the prevalence of monuments to empire and imperialists
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Using the Polar Literacy Principles in Science Communication

Posted on 17 September 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Janice McDonnell, Science Educator, Rutgers University  In 2015, I had the opportunity to support a team of scientists working on the Long-term Ecological Research program (LTER for short) on their education and outreach efforts at Palmer Station Antarctica.   In addition to two Antarctic sites, the LTER program includes four long-term research sites in the Arctic.
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Interview: Geoff York – Polar Bears International

Posted on 23 July 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

In late April, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Geoff York (in front of our respective computer screens) to talk about the state of polar bear conservation and management, and his work as Senior Director of Conservation for Polar Bears International, a leading non-profit dedicated to the conservation of wild polar bears. 🔊
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Review: One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk

Posted on 22 June 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Max Modell A haunting story of yesterday, One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk is a wholly unique film. It demands that you lean in close, to pick up every detail, not just because of Inuktitut language and subtitles, but because so much happens non-verbally. From the shared looks and laughs of Piugattuk’s group to
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Conjuring Matthew Henson: African-American Polar Explorer

Posted on 9 June 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Carole Boston Weatherford When I was growing up in Baltimore, my father taught at Frederick Douglass High School, his alma mater and for years one of only two local high schools that admitted blacks. Among the school’s former faculty was Herbert M. Frisby (1888-1983), a biology teacher, historian and advocate for the African-American community.
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Hooked on the Arctic

Posted on 1 April 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Irene Quaile Back in 2007, I was sitting in my office at Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. I opened an intriguing email from Soundprint Media, a production company in the USA. They were proposing a joint funding application from recognised feature-makers in several countries to make a series of radio documentaries highlighting different aspects of polar research
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Studies from Siberia

Posted on 9 March 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Sophie Watson As someone whose research lies in the heart of polar ecosystems, I’ve been lucky enough to visit some of the world’s remote and frozen regions. Nothing provokes me more than to see a landscape so merciless and yet so fragile –where the ticking of time seems so urgent. In February 2020 I
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Telling Your Science Story

Posted on 27 January 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Euan Paterson, communications and media officer, Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) It was at a recent marine biology conference that a research colleague of mine had his science communications ‘Eureka moment’. It came during a session when the presenter confessed she was not a good communicator – because she was ‘a scientist’. My
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The ’Greenland card’ – Arctic Colonialism in the Cold War Era

Posted on 7 January 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Iben Bjørnsson The Second World War had significant consequences for Greenland. Greenland was cut off from her colonial metropole and, for the first time in several hundred years, the strict monopoly that Denmark had upheld was broken. One of new players entering Greenland in this power vacuum was the USA, for which the war
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The Idea of North and His Dark Materials

Posted on 21 December 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Ingrid Medby Far-away, forbidding, dangerous, and yet strangely alluring and beautiful: The Arctic has for centuries inspired southern imaginations. From medieval tales of monsters and magic, to Poe’s gothic horror, the idea of North is and has been a rich source for storytellers across time. And this autumn, the North has once again been
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