The path to a “cool” career may be covered in snow or dusted with sand, but it certainly takes hard work! Finding ways for students to explore different career paths can help them determine their next step after K-12 education—and can help them figure out if they’ll need a scarf or a swimsuit to pack for their workday.

Established in 2011 by Polar Bears International, the only nonprofit dedicated solely to wild polar bears and Arctic sea ice, the week celebrates the Arctic, educates people around the world about polar bears and their melting ecosystem, and inspires people to get involved in sustaining their future.

Anyone who owns a dog knows just how sticky—and persistent—burrs can be. But researchers at Polar Bears International, Toronto’s York University and 3M have used burrs as inspiration for a new method to track polar bears.

Research testing new technology to more effectively locate polar bear dens across the Arctic is showing promising results. Researchers from Simon Fraser University and Brigham Young University (BYU), collaborating with Polar Bears International, hope that improving detection tools to locate dens—which are nearly invisible and buried under snow—will help efforts to protect mother polar bears and their cubs.

Research testing new technology to more effectively locate polar bear dens across the Arctic is showing promising results. Researchers from Simon Fraser University and Brigham Young University (BYU), collaborating with Polar Bears International, hope that improving detection tools to locate dens -- which are nearly invisible and buried under snow -- will help efforts to protect mother polar bears and their cubs.

Research testing new technology to more effectively locate polar bear dens across the Arctic is showing promising results. Researchers from Simon Fraser University (SFU) and Brigham Young University (BYU), collaborating with Polar Bears International, hope that improving detection tools to locate dens—which are nearly invisible and buried under snow—will help efforts to protect mother polar bears and their cubs.

Scientists are testing new radar technology in an effort to protect one of the Arctic’s most iconic creatures: the polar bear.

“It was something we thought might be happening, but it hadn’t really been shown yet,” Louise Archer, report author and Polar Bears International Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto Scarborough, told Eye on the Arctic in a phone interview.

Polar Bears International provides webcams focused on polar bears in their natural habitat. Observe these majestic creatures in the Arctic and gain insights into their behavior and the challenges they face due to climate change.

Some brands affiliate with organizations that strive to preserve nature and biodiversity. For example, Bering has some models of which part of the proceeds goes to Polar Bears International, Certina supports the Sea Turtle Conservancy and Seiko Save The Ocean projects for nature conservation.

Polar Bears International, the nonprofit dedicated to conserving wild polar bears and their sea ice habitat, describes how pregnant polar bears dig snow caves on shore and give birth, often to twins, in December. The “Predators” polar bear episode begins with one brand-new family poking their heads out from inside their snow den until they fully emerge in the spring when the cubs begin outdoor life and their intensive survival training.

he bears — long held up as icons of the climate crisis — live only in the Arctic, around the North Pole and in northern parts of Canada, Alaska, Russia, Greenland and Norway. Their preferred habitat is the sea ice that covers Arctic waters for most of the year. When mother polar bears are forced onto land, as sometimes happens during the summer months, they struggle to access nourishing food and the quantity and quality of the milk they produce for their cubs declines, according to a paper that will be published Thursday in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

“We still have gaps in understanding how climate change is affecting wild polar bears, and it’s essential that the bears in human care help scientists learn more about their species,” said Amy Cutting, vice president of conservation for Polar Bears International. “Zoo bears are perfect candidates to help because they already participate in many health-care behaviors voluntarily and seem to find those experiences enriching.”

"Zoos such as here also contribute to charities. We work with numerous charities such as Polar Bears International, as well as Lemur Love and Sphenisco, a Humboldt penguin charity. Peak Wildlife Park's mission statement is 'to take and inspire action to secure wildlife and wild places.'

Recently, advancements have allowed male polar bears to be tracked using battery-operated ear tags. On the Polar Bears International website, we can watch live tracking of polar bears every winter while they are on the ice.

Unfortunately, Churchill’s polar bears are under threat from climate change. Biologists with the University of Toronto and Polar Bears International, a non-profit conservation organization, recently reported that polar bears living in the Western Hudson Bay region could experience reproductive failure by 2060 as the sea ice disappears. By 2100—without dramatic intervention—the population could collapse entirely. Find out more about polar bear conservation and learn how you can help!

Scientists are interested in understanding why a given year may have more or less sea ice, even though the multi-decade trend is clearly down, said Flavio Lehner, an assistant professor of Earth and atmospheric science at Cornell University who is also chief climate scientist for Polar Bears International.

That set what seemed an impossibly high scientific bar at the time because researchers hadn’t yet fully identified the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions from specific projects on threatened species. But science has cleared that hurdle, said Steven Amstrup, an adjunct biology professor at the University of Wyoming and co-author of a new peer-reviewed paper in Science that could help “close the loophole” in the Endangered Species Act by showing how emissions from new projects on federal lands result in more days during which polar bears can’t feed because of declining sea ice.

As Arctic ice melts, polar bears must leave their homes. Biologist and conservationist Alysa McCall shares lessons on how to plan for a future where climate change forces us all a little closer.

"We have presented the information necessary to rescind the Bernhardt Memo," first co-author Steven Amstrup, a zoologist with Polar Bears International and the University of Wyoming, told AFP, referring to the legal caveat which was named after an attorney in former president George W Bush's administration.