Lars Kullerud, UArctic president acknowledged the grant award Friday, Sept. 8 at the Helge Ingstad Memorial Symposium on Arctic Change, a two-day symposium held on the UAF campus. The symposium also received some IPY funding from the U.S. State Department.
The education and outreach office award enables it to provide more support for IPY activities relating to increasing public awareness of the polar regions and the importance of polar science, improving polar science education and cultural understanding, and the development of a new generation of arctic researchers. IPY, a two-year event, beginning in March 2007, is an international program focusing on improving knowledge and understanding of physical, biological and human processes in the Arctic and Antarctica and their relationship to the rest of the world.
"This award will enable us to play a leading role in the development and implementation of IPY education and outreach activities in partnership with Alaskan, national and international researchers and educators," said Martin Jeffries, education and outreach office director.
The UAF/UArctic collaborative education and outreach office has been endorsed by the IPY joint committee, which oversees IPY via the International Programme Office in Cambridge, England.
UArctic is an international coalition of more than 100 universities and organizations focusing on higher education in the North. The IPY office award represents the first federal funding that UArctic has received through a member institution.