Pondering the Poles: LSU Museum of Natural Science Hosts POLAR-PALOOZA

November 14, 2007 —Climate change occurs first and most dramatically in the polar regions. But why should people in Louisiana care about what happens at the poles? How can retreating ice sheets in Antarctica or melting sea ice in the Arctic affect Baton Rouge? How can increasing temperatures at the North or South Pole influence the intensity of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico? The public can get answers to all these questions and more when “POLAR-PALOOZA: Stories from a Changing Planet,” an education and outreach project featuring the people who know the poles best – ice researchers, biologists, oceanographers, climate scientists and Arctic residents – comes to LSU and Baton Rouge.

On Friday, Nov. 16, from 6:30 - 8 p.m., at the BREC Independence Park Theatre, POLAR-PALOOZA will bring to Baton Rouge a team of six scientists – residents as well as Arctic researchers – who will share personal stories of life, research and adventure in the polar regions. Their stories will be supported by dynamic, high-definition documentary video as well as graphics, animation, original artifacts, research tools and equipment. Each presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session, along with informal interaction with the polar team. This event is free of charge and family-friendly. The public is encouraged to attend. For more information about the schedule or to register, visit www.lsu.edu/polarpalooza.

Participants will be able to touch a dinosaur bone from the Arctic that is more than 70 million years old and see a three-thousand-year-old ice core from Antarctica. They can also try on the same extreme cold weather gear worn by participants in the National Science Foundations’ Antarctic Program and feel caribou skin mukluks from the Arctic.

Baton Rouge is one of only eight cities to be selected for the POLAR-PALOOZA tour in 2007. Others include Los Angeles, Calif.; San Diego, Calif.; Albuquerque, NM; San Francisco, Calif.; Berkeley, Calif.; Tampa, Fla.; and Atlanta, Ga. Twenty more communities will follow in 2008.

Speakers include:

Phil Bart, geology professor at LSU, recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, an expert studying ice sheet systems in Antarctica and looking into other periods in Earth’s history when the climate was warmer than present in order to gain insight into what might happen to the global sea-level if the climatic warming trend continues;
Mike Castellini from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, a marine mammal expert and director of the university’s Institute of Marine Science;
Jackie Grebmeier from the University of Tennessee, a biological oceanographer;
Marshall Shepherd, former research meteorologist at NASA and current expert on weather, climate and remote sensing, currently at the University of Georgia;
Charlie Bentley, veteran of the 1957 International Geophysical Year, or IGY, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin and head of the United States’ Antarctic ice core drilling project;
Leigh Stearns, University of Maine geologist and glaciology specialist; and
Richard Glenn, Alaskan native and head of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium.

POLAR-PALOOZA is a participant in the International Polar Year, or IPY, (March 2007- March 2009) which is a concerted international research initiative focusing on the poles and the changes each is undergoing due to climate change. Fifty years ago, the International Geophysical Year, or IGY, led to the birth of the space age and the formation of NASA.

There have been four previous IPYs, with the first beginning in 1882, but this is the first of the digital age. More than 50,000 researchers from 60 nations are traveling to the poles to conduct research. Documentation of their work, including podcasts, blogs and video reports, can be found online at passporttoknowledge.com/polar-palooza through the end of IPY.

POLAR-PALOOZA in Baton Rouge is made possible by support from the National Science Foundation, or NSF, and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and in collaboration with Apple Computer and local science museums and centers. It is an official activity of the IPY and is produced by Passport to Knowledge.

POLAR-PALOOZA is organized locally by the LSU MNS, thanks to a grant from the Irene W. and C. B. Pennington Foundation and the support of the LSU College of Basic Sciences.

For more information, please contact Sophie Warny at 225-578-5089 or swarny@lsu.edu.

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