In June-July 2009 IPY summer school was run at UNIS http://www.unis.no/10_STUDIES/1020_Courses/IPY_field_school/IPY_field_school_2009.htm.

In total 297 students from 50 different countries applied for this course. Only 24 student places were available, and the 24 lucky ones came from Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, Germany, U.S.A., the Netherlands, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Ecuador and Russia.

Post. doc. Janne Søreide on the CLEOPATRA project was responsible for the marine biology part of this multidisiplinary course, which involved lectures, field- and laboratory work. The students got an overview of the Norwegian IPY project CLEOPATRA and the main findings so far, as well as training in key sampling techniques of plankton, i.e. water mass identifiaction using a CTD, water sampling (nutrients, chlorophyll a and phytoplankton community) and sampling of meso- and macrozooplankton. UNIS research wessel "Viking Explorer" was used as sampling platform at sea, close to the little auk (Alle alle) breeding colony in Bjørndalen. The field task was to examine the food conditions for this little sea bird this breeding season. The little auk is a plankton feeder feeding mainly on the larger energy-rich Calanus, i.e C. glacialis CIV and older. For more information about the marine biology student project see here Project background and description, and for the students main results see here Student poster.