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What: Polar-Palooza, Stories from a Changing Planet

When: 7 p.m. tonight, hands-on expo begins at 6 p.m.

Where: West Valley High School Auditorium

Admission: Free

Fans mobbing the main act for autographs, complex technology and the word “palooza” all sound like typical fanfare for a rock star — but this show’s in the name of science.

“I’ve never seen science brought to the public like this,” said Mike Castellini, the assistant dean at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.

“Polar-Palooza: Stories from a Changing Planet,” is a national tour to bring attention to changes in the Arctic and Antarctic. The Fairbanks public presentation will start at 7 p.m. tonight at the West Valley High School Auditorium.

In the hour leading up to the event, there will be an expo sponsored by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Polar Outreach Office, with hands-on activities. Hot Licks will also offer an ice cream treat, called Permafrost Thaw, which will be served from 6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.

The event is part of Passport to Knowledge, a series of interactive learning adventures connecting essential life, Earth, space and physical science concepts with exciting real world phenomena, using a powerful, integrated suite of video programs, hands-on activities and online resources to deliver real learning via real life experiences by scientists.

“The goal is to take all this seemingly disparate information and weave it into a series of personal stories about our work north and south,” said Castellini, adding that they stay away from the words “lecture” and “teach.” “We blend in major concepts and raw data, but this is not a lecture.”

The researchers, who have been touring the Lower 48 and now Alaska, instead share their own stories from the Arctic and Antarctic.

“The kids are blown away by the idea that science can be fun and that real people actually do it, and our message is that they can, too,” he said.

There will also be computer modeling and a card game called “Polar Opposites.”

“It’s to show people what the Arctic and the Antarctic have in common and what they don’t,” said Kerynn Fisher, the communications coordinator for the UA Museum of the North.

In the Lower 48, the two poles are more of an abstract idea than they are in Alaska.

“Given that the focus of Polar-Palooza is on the change that is happening at the poles and and how they impact global climate change, it is easy to make the connections for Alaskans,” Castellini said.

Researchers come from throughout the United States and travel together, sharing their different experiences in science related to global warming. Friday’s presenters include Castellini; Huslia wildlife biologist Orville Huntington, the nephew of “Shadows on the Koyukuk” author Sidney Huntington; Jackie Richter-Menge, a New Jersey sea ice researcher with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Charlie Bentley, from University of Wisconsin-Madison, taught many of today’s leading glaciologists.

“He’s the International Polar Year veteran on the tour,” Fisher said. “He was in Antarctica in the ‘50s during the third IYP.”

There will be a mix of hands-on demonstrations, high-definition video, still photos of the Arctic and the Antarctic, “and these researchers talking about their own adventures,” Fisher said.

“We had people come to the adult version last night here in Anchorage and then come back to the kid version just to see the difference,” Castellini said, earlier this week. “They loved them both.”

Polar-Palooza debuted in October 2007, funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA and International Polar Year. One of the co-creators, Geoff Haines-Stiles, was the senior producer of “Cosmos” with Carl Sagan.

“He wanted to take a very complicated subject and present it in an engaging and user-friendly way,” Fisher said.