The Live from IPY! event with Lollie Garay and the research team aboard the Oden, on 17 December 2007 is now archived. To access the archive, click here!

Who was on the expedition?

Lollie Garay teaches Earth and Space Science at Redd School in Houston, Texas, and holds a Master of Science Teaching degree from Rice University. Her mission in teaching is to get students excited about science through active, real-time learning. She develops Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs for students, families, and teachers including after-school programs in Robotics, Engineering, Aeronautics, and Amateur Radio. Ms. Garay works with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Pre-College program, various NASA Science committees, is a Fellow with Baylor College of Medicine and the NASA MESSENGER Mission programs, and was a JASON Project XVII Teacher Argo. Ms. Garay believes polar education and public outreach are integral to creating change and developing environmental stewardship, and will use her expedition on the Oden to bring the science into the classroom.

Ms. Garay joined a team of international scientists on the Oden icebreaker including Drs. Robert Sherell and Walker Smith. Dr. Sherell is a professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and Department of Geological Sciences at Rutgers University and the US science lead on the expedition. His research attempts to understand the processes that control the distribution of trace elements in the water column of the ocean. He is particularly interested in the role of primary producers, and how these organisms influence the global concentration and distribution of trace elements. Dr. Walker Smith is a professor of Marine Science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Dr. Smith studies the year-to-year changes in the biology, physics, and chemistry of Antarctica's Ross Sea and how these changes control the growth and fate of phytoplankton in the ocean.

What were they doing?

Lollie Garay journeyed across the world to participate in a unique co-operative endeavor between the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Along with researchers, teachers and other personnel from Sweden, and the United States, Ms. Garay boarded the Swedish icebreaker Oden in Punta Arenas, Chile and traveled to McMurdo Base in Antarctica, finally returning home via Christchurch, New Zealand.

The scientific objectives of the cruise were to collect a range of data in rarely traveled areas of the Antarctic seas and coastline, including the Bellingshausen, Amundsen, and eastern Ross Seas. An international research team studyed the oceanography and biogeochemistry of the region while in transit to Antarctica, with a particular emphasis on the processes that control the growth and fate of phytoplankton in the ocean. 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.

Where were they?

Ms. Garay boarded the Oden icebreaker in Punta Arenas, Chile, the southernmost city in South America and then traveled across the southern Pacific Ocean to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, the largest research station in Antarctica.

Project Vocabulary

trace elements: chemical elements required for proper growth of many organisms but found in very small quantities.
water column: hypothetical 'cylinder' of water between the surface of the ocean and the ocean bottom.
primary producers: organisms that make their own food from sunlight such as plants, phytoplankton and some bacteria.
phytoplankton: small or microscopic aquatic plants that float or drift in fresh or salt water.