Press

ALBANY, NY – The New York State Museum will present a PBS documentary December 11 about the Scotia-based New York Air National Guard Airlift Wing’s journey to Greenland with a team of international scientists investigating global warming.

“Arctic Air: A Greenlandic Journey with the 109th” will be shown free-of-charge at 2 p.m. in the Museum’s Huxley Theater. Following the film there will be a question-and-answer session with Amy Manley, the film’s producer and Lt Col Kurt Bedore, a navigator from the 109th Airlift Wing.

The documentary was produced by WCNY, a PBS television station in Syracuse, which traveled alongside American and international teams of scientists as they were transported to Greenland by the 109th Airlift Wing in the summer of 2009.

Flying the United States Air Force's only ski-equipped C-130 Hercules cargo planes, the Wing provides vital support for polar researchers working in the Arctic and Antarctica. “Arctic Air” captures the Wing members' commitment as they face many challenges in a frozen land that is both beautiful and dangerous. The skilled pilots and their crews transport supplies, cargo and staff to and from Greenland in temperatures that threaten to freeze their planes' fuel and hydraulic fluid.

The film shows the camps where American and international teams of scientists seek to unlock mysteries of the past buried deep within the polar ice cap to help provide answers to some of today's most important questions about climate change and global warning. Lack of pollution, unique topography and untouched flows of glacial ice have made the Greenland ice sheet an ideal laboratory for this research. The 109th Airlift Wing missions have made it possible for scientists from around the world to gather the critical data that is now shaping political, environmental and economic policies on climate change.

WCNY is also providing an online teachers’ guide to the documentary with grade-appropriate activities and links to educational resources for classroom and student research use. The suggested activities focus on the topics introduced in the film including scientific Arctic exploration, Arctic aviation, climate control, global warming, life in Greenland, and unique career opportunities for students to explore.

Funding for “Arctic Air: A Greenlandic Journey with the 109th” is provided by CH2M HILL and Lockheed Martin. More information on the documentary and the teachers’ guide is available at www.wcny.org/arcticair. The film is one of a series of programs planned in conjunction with the Museum’s Citizen Soldier: New York’s National Guard in the American Century exhibition, open through March 2011. The exhibition is also online on the Museum’s website at www.nysm.nysed.gov

Established in 1836, the State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further

information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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