Discovering the Arctic website redesign by wave

We have been working with wave since 2006, producing our most successful and interactive online education resources. Together we have been awarded national and international recognition for our websites and interactives including nominations from the BAFTA and Webby awards.

Steve Brace , Head of Education - Royal Geographical Society (IBG)

Wave originally designed and built Discovering the Arctic back in 2009, when iPhones were a novelty and touchscreens a rarity. By 2017 the website definitely needed a refresh.

Discovering the Arctic is an award-winning interactive educational teaching and learning online resource for schools. The Royal Geographical Society with IBG developed the site, in partnership with the British Antarctic Survey, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Scottish Association for Marine Science.

Bringing everything up to date

RGS wanted us to update Discovering the Arctic just as we had recently updated its sister site, Discovering Antarctica. We rebuilt the site from the ground up as a fully responsive, device agnostic website. A handmade WordPress theme holds refreshed and updated content. We recreated the many activities (originally built in Flash) in HTML canvas using Create.js and GSAP.

A wide ranging resource

Discovering the Arctic needs to be both educational and appealing to young people, and makes full use of rich media. The site has a wide range of interactive HTML canvas activities, along with a custom-built media library including video and downloadable resources. We set up a Vimeo channel to host Discovering the Arctic’s videos, and wherever possible, there are fully accessible downloadable alternatives for the online interactives.