International Expedition to Antarctica aboard the Icebreaker Oden ‘08
November 25, 2008 - January 12, 2009 | Southern Oceans, Antarctica
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The Live from IPY! events with Jeff Peneston and the team aboard the Oden from December 15, 2008 and January 7, 2009 are now archived. To access the archives, click here.
Join PolarTREC teacher, Jeff Peneston, aboard the Oden and check out all the class flags that he will be taking with him. To view all the flags that classrooms around the country have sent him to carry to Antarctica, click here.
Check out the blog of Swedish teacher, Marja Andersson, here. She's on the expedition with Jeff! You'll need a Google translator to read this Swedish blog.
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. Check out Jeff's classroom website at http://fc.liverpool.k12.ny.us/~peneston/.
Dr. Patricia (Tish) Yager had planned to be a medical doctor since she was about five years old. However, as a freshman in college, she took an Oceanography class and was totally hooked. Dr. Yager received her PhD. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Washington in 1996. She has been a faculty member at the University of Georgia, School of Marine Programs since 1998, and her research addresses the impact of climate change on the marine biosphere and subsequent feedbacks. Over the past 15 years, she has studied climate-sensitive marine ecosystems in the Arctic, the Amazon River plume, and the Antarctic. Dr. Yager is the lead Principal Investigator for the US sea-ice team onboard the 2008 Oden Antarctic Expedition. Three of Dr. Yager’s students from the University of Georgia will also be participating in the expedition: Brett Heimlich, Kevin Bakker, and Alexandra Mass.
Dr. Yager and Mr. Bakker worked with PolarTREC teacher, Lollie Garay, onboard the 2007 Oden Antarctic Expedition. Check out Mrs. Garay’s PolarTREC journals and photos and Dr. Yager’s photos from the 2007 Oden Antarctic Expedition!
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.
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.
