As 2007 ends, I am reflecting back on this entire year as well as my experience in Antarctica. And I realize that Antarctica has permeated much of this year. It was this time, one year ago, that I completed and submitted my PolarTREC application to ARCUS. Then in early March I interviewed with Stacy, Nick and Bob, and was accepted onto the SCINI team and into the PolarTREC program. Less than two weeks later I was in Fairbanks, Alaska at the Orientation Workshop with almost all of the teachers selected for the 2007 PolarTREC experience.
The orientation was an outstanding experience. The workshop was extremely organized and all the information was valuable. A bonus was how well the teachers bonded and how professional, supportive and friendly the entire ARCUS staff was and continues to be.
During the spring and summer I read a dozen books about Antarctica, and started developing lists of quotes, and ideas of curriculum connections for teachers at different grade levels. By August I was working on lesson plans for leaving my students during the fall semester.
Developing lesson plans for three different subjects (six total classes) for seven weeks was an enormous amount of work. I used a 3-ring binder for each subject, and had a separate tab for each day’s lesson. I made copies of all the handouts, worksheets and tests for the students and made keys for my substitute teacher as needed. I scavenged a new cabinet for my room, and used a separate shelf for each subject. I stacked all the student papers chronologically. I also included all the materials for labs either in that same cupboard or labeled in the chemistry cabinet. I spent most of each weekend and many days late after school from mid-August through September preparing for my substitute teacher. I want to thank Ted Tonkinson, substitute extraordinaire, for so skillfully teaching my students and helping them keep up with my adventures while I was gone.
Then, on September 30th, I left Flagstaff for seven weeks. I was emotional leaving my daughter and husband for so long, but also excited about the adventure ahead. And adventure it was! Highlights for me included the everyday work with my science team on common goals; the success of getting our Remotely Operated Vehicle SCINI in the ocean relaying underwater images to us on the ice surface; finding the "Lost Experiments” of Dr. Paul Dayton after their 40-year unrecorded submergence; hiking in each others footsteps to the Commonwealth GlacierA mass of ice that persists for many years and notably deforms and flows under the influence of gravity. in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica; watching the fascinating Adélie Penguins of the Cape Royds Colony; seeing the historic huts from both Scott’s Discovery expedition near McMurdo Station and Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition at Cape Royds; and experiencing daily life in a crazy place like McMurdo Station!
After not having thought about Antarctica at all for most of my life, now I can’t seem to stop thinking about it. The most stunning realization I had was soon after I arrived at McMurdo; all of the "stuff” and all of the people at McMurdo were there to support science. Over 80 buildings, over 1,000 people in the summer season, giant tanks of fuel, lots of crazy vehicles, and all there to support the scientific activities taking place at and around McMurdo. The field camps, on the ice and on the continent, were built, maintained, heated, and stocked by people working for science even though they themselves were not scientists. From the amazing pecan rolls that Nick the baker made for Sunday brunch, to the surreal warmth of the greenhouse, McMurdo strives to add human comforts to a place otherwise devoted solely to science.
And everyone works hard. The scientists, because of their relatively short field season, work ALL THE TIME. Their idea of a break is to go eat lunch, or maybe sleep for a few hours. But there is no vacation at McMurdo. If there is down time because bad weather limits travel, the scientists catch up on their paperwork. And the support staff works from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm 6 days a week, for six months straight. They get a normal two-day weekend for Thanksgiving and for Christmas only. So the scientists, cooks, custodians, mechanics and carpenters all work hard and long hours.
Because science teams, generally around six people per team with the principal investigators (PIs) and the graduate students, work so closely together, and are often out at field camps where they are sleeping and not bathing together, personalities become sharpened. There are teams that have reputations for breaking down each season due to internal conflicts.
We were lucky that our personalities didn’t grate on each other too often. Stacy Kim, our PI, showed her leadership and skill at building and maintaining an esprit-de-corps within our team. While she had clear expectations for our team, she also demonstrated flexibility with individuals as needed. Each week she had a silly gift that went to one of us for some goofy reason, and she organized celebratory get-togethers outside of working hours. She also took the training she needed to take us into some of the historic huts in the area. She was sensitive to the fact that Nick, Bryan, Marcus and I were first-timers to Antarctica and would most likely never get there again, so she took valuable time off from the project for us to have some unique Antarctica experiences. It took an entire day to go to the Adélie Penguin colony at Cape Royds. This was Stacy’s 11th season in Antarctica so she had been there before; she went out of her way so we could have this amazing experience, and I am so grateful to her for that. We also toured the Pegasus aircraft crash (everyone survived!), two historic huts, and we hiked to the Commonwealth GlacierA mass of ice that persists for many years and notably deforms and flows under the influence of gravity. when we were out at New Harbor in the Dry Valleys. These may sound familiar as some of my favorite experiences that I mentioned earlier, so you can see how important it was that Stacy made the time for us to see these special places.
We can see Antarctica on so many different levels. We can see Antarctica as a place, with its physical characteristics and its limited repertoire of sensory stimulation. There is cold, but not warmth. There is dryness but rarely moisture. There is white and blue, but not green or yellow. There is limited taste and smell. There is no sound except the wind.
We can see Antarctica as function, honoring the Antarctic Treaty, and promoting peaceful studies of science. And the variety and amount of science is staggering.
We can see Antarctica as metaphor. Ernest Shackleton wrote: ""We all have our own White South.” A colleague of Shackleton’s notes in his diary that for Shackleton "Antarctica did not exist. It was the inner, not the outer world that engrossed him.” Later, in his novel V, Thomas Pynchon writes "You wait. Everyone has an Antarctic.”
Antarctica has no early human history, no native populations. The shared history, for today’s scientists, explorers and mechanics from many different countries, is only 100 years old. And so the few lucky people that get the chance to go to Antarctica, continue that history.
My responsibility as an educator, given this incredible opportunity, is to share what I have learned about Antarctica on all these levels. Not only do I want my students to gain an appreciation of Antarctica as a place, and the history of Antarctic exploration, but I want them to understand the critical role people of different nationalities had in writing, and now following, an international treaty to protect this most remote and pristine of places. The lessons we learn in Antarctica can be applied to the students’ world.
I hope our youth find their way to contribute to a future sustainable world. They can be the diplomat, scientist, or cook. They can be artists, enhancing our senses and inviting us to experience an image more deeply through their art, and even encouraging us to action through the power of their art. Seeing Antarctica from different lenses may allow our youth to see more complex arenas of their lives in the same way.
Stacy told me she wanted to study the ecologic interactions of marine organisms in Antarctica because it was a simpler system. She feels by studying a simple system she can learn things that are applicable to more complex systems, and understand better how humans are interacting with and changing that system.
Can we all learn from this harsh white continent? Learn not just the science, but learn the lessons of getting along with others and accomplishing things that are bigger together than we would ever do apart?
Our world faces huge challenges at this time. In our own ways, we will face and meet these challenges, and discover within our own white souths some abilities we may not have known we had.
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