Teaching polar science: free resources for classrooms

Updated November 2026

You do not need a research ship to teach polar science. Several polar research organizations publish classroom-ready material online, and two fixed dates each year, Polar Week and Antarctica Day, give a natural hook for lessons.

Start here

If you have one lesson, start with the basics of ice: what the cryosphere is and why sea ice and ice sheets behave differently. If you have a week, add real data and a scientist's voice. The resources below are grouped so you can pick by need.

Background reading for teachers and students

NSIDC Learn
The National Snow and Ice Data Center explains each part of the cryosphere, "all of the snow and ice-covered regions across the planet," on separate pages: sea ice, ice sheets, ice shelves, glaciers, snow, frozen ground and permafrost, and Arctic weather and climate. Its Cryosphere Glossary is useful for vocabulary lists, and Ask a Scientist answers common questions from the public.
NOAA Arctic Report Card
An annual, peer-reviewed summary of the state of the Arctic compared with historical records, issued every year since 2006. NOAA aims it at scientists, teachers, students, decision makers and the public. The 2025 edition, its 20th year, highlights that the Arctic is warming far faster than the rest of the planet, that warmer and saltier Atlantic water is moving north ("Atlantification"), that southern (boreal) species are spreading north, and that thawing permafrost is releasing iron and other metals into rivers ("rusting rivers").
Discovering Antarctica
An interactive schools website from the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in partnership with the British Antarctic Survey, supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Resources are sorted by UK Key Stages 2 to 5 (roughly ages 7 to 18) and by topic: fauna and flora, ice sheets and shelves, glaciers, meteorology, the Southern Ocean, exploration, tourism, climate change and how Antarctica is governed. It is designed to dip into rather than follow as a course; many activities are interactive, with text-based alternatives.

Real scientists, real expeditions

PolarTREC
PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating) began as a project of the International Polar Year 2007–2008. It is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and run by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS). Teachers spend several weeks in the Arctic or Antarctic as members of a research team and share the experience through online journals, photos, multimedia and web seminars. Classes can follow these journals online, and teachers can apply to join future expeditions (check the PolarTREC site for current eligibility rules).
APECS
The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists, founded during the last International Polar Year, connects students and young researchers working on polar topics. Membership is free. For Polar Week, APECS develops polar science activities together with teachers and educators.

Dates for your calendar

Recurring polar outreach dates
WhenEventClassroom angle
March (around the equinox)APECS Polar WeekDay length, seasons, Arctic spring
September (around the equinox)APECS Polar WeekEnd of Arctic summer, Antarctic spring
1 DecemberAntarctica DayThe 1959 Antarctic Treaty and international cooperation

APECS times Polar Week to the equinoxes for a neat reason: in March and September, day length is about 12 hours everywhere on Earth, from the North Pole to the South Pole. Details of each year's activities appear on the International Polar Week page.

Ready-made collections

Three activity ideas

1. Graph the sea ice

Download a monthly sea ice extent series from NSIDC's Sea Ice Index. Ask students to pick one month, for example September, and plot that month's value for each year and draw a trend line. To read the slope, take two points: if extent fell from 7 million km² to 4.5 million km² over 30 years in a student's chosen range, the drop is 2.5 million km² ÷ 30 = about 83,000 km² per year. Students should use the real numbers from the file, not these round example figures. More background: Polar ice.

2. A treaty for a continent

On Antarctica Day, give groups the seven key articles of the Antarctic Treaty in plain words (see Antarctica and the Treaty) and ask them to decide which one they would keep if they could keep only one, and why. Then discuss why countries with competing territorial claims still signed.

3. Then and now

Compare the first International Polar Year of 1882–83, when about a dozen countries set up stations with identical instruments, with the 2007–2008 IPY, which involved more than 60 countries and an estimated 50,000 people. Ask: what stayed the same, and what changed? Background on History of the IPYs; data sources on Polar data.

Talking about Arctic peoples. Use the names peoples use for themselves, such as Inuit rather than "Eskimo", and present Indigenous communities as living societies and knowledge holders, not only as people affected by change. The guide Arctic peoples covers respectful terms.

Sources