LTER announces a Children’s Book On Antarctica
The lost seal - Book Cover
© International Polar Foundation
A chance encounter with a wayward seal, lost in Antarctica's Dry Valleys, by a team of Antarctic researchers has led to an engaging children's book by a University of Colorado at Boulder professor describing the beat of life in one of the world's harshest environments.
Titled "The Lost Seal," the book describes the unexpected discovery of a Weddel seal pup that strayed from the sea ice of McMurdo Sound into the Dry Valleys region, where Professor Diane McKnight and her colleagues were conducting research in 1990. The book then chronicles the eventual rescue of the seal, weaving in educational information about the cold desert ecosystem in the Dry Valleys unfamiliar to most school children.
The book was timed to coincide with the International Polar Year 2007-08, which will feature two seasons of fieldwork in the arctic and Antarctic by scientists worldwide beginning in March 2007 using satellites, rovers, climate stations, GPS technology and supercomputers to better understand the role the polar regions play in global processes. The IPF assisted in the development of this book.
More information can be found on the book's dedicated website.
