Oden Antarctic Expedition 08
Update
Meet the Team
Teacher - Jeff Peneston
Jeff Peneston can walk or snowshoe out his back door into the forest and lakes of Camp Talooli, a children’s camp that he has helped his wife direct for 24 years. Each school day he leaves his forested home to teach Earth Science at Liverpool High School, just North of Syracuse, New York. Mr. Peneston has been teaching for 22 years and his passion has been to find ways to bring his students out into the natural world where they can learn to solve authentic problems. In 2000 he helped create the Expedition Earth Science program and each year he leads groups of students to locations around Upstate New York where they can act as field scientists for a day or a weekend. Mr. Peneston believes what one of his students once told him, “Real science begins where the classroom ends!” Mr. Peneston will be joining a team of international scientists on the Oden icebreaker.
Researcher - Tish Yager
Dr. Patricia (Tish) Yager is an associate professor in marine sciences at the University of Georgia. Her research interests include biological and and chemical oceanography, with a particular interest in the relationship between the changing climate and the marine ecosystem. She has spent several seasons woking in Antarctica, and also studies microbial communities in the Amazon River. To learn more about Dr. Yager, please visit her faculty biography page (http://www.marsci.uga.edu/directory/pyager.htm).
Journals
1/20/2009: The CTD, An Inner Space Probe to the Ocean Depths
1/21/09 Honey, I’m Home!
1/13/09 Two Days in McMurdo Station, Ross Island
1/12/2009 Are We There Yet??
1/9/2009 Flying Penguins Video
Project Information
Where are They?
Mr. Peneston boarded the Swedish Icebreaker Oden in Montevideo, Uruguay. From there, the team traveled south down the eastern shoreline of South America. After rounding the tip of South America, the Oden crossed the Southern Ocean to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, the largest research station in Antarctica.
For additional maps and information about the 2008 Oden Antarctic Expedition, download slides here.
What are they Doing?
The scientific objectives of the cruise aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden included collecting a range of data in rarely traveled areas of the Antarctic seas and coastline, including the Amundsen and eastern Ross Seas. An international research team studied the oceanography and biogeochemistry of the region while in transit to Antarctica, with a particular emphasis on the processes that control the production and destruction of greenhouse gases and on the role of sea ice microorganisms in this process. These studies will add to our limited knowledge of these remote corners of the Antarctic Seas and allow future researchers to expand their monitoring efforts in these regions.
Vocabulary
- Icebreaker
An icebreaker is a special purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters.