3 December 2010 Sneak Peek--A future University of Deleware Blog entry

Hello everyone, This has been a busy week of work out at IceTop, we're very close to filling all our tanks, but more on that later. One of my inside jobs this week was to write a blog about working with IceCube for the University of Deleware Extreme 2010 An Antarctic Adventure program http://www.expeditions.udel.edu/antarctica/. Instead of making you wait for my blog to post, I thought I'd post it here too. Spoiler alert! I'm going to give it all away.

Working with IceCube: Surprises from the South Pole By Katey Shirey

I know that the first sign of frostbite is pain. So I’m looking out for pain above all in the other cold feelings I’m feeling as I crawl around on the plywood cover of a 600-gallon tank at the South Pole station in Antarctica. Oh, it’s cold, oh, my knees! Oh, it’s beautiful! How did I get here?

In my everyday job I teach Physics in a bustling high school in Arlington, Virginia. Our population is roughly 2,000 students and 250 teachers. Through my classroom door everyday I see a hundred different students. For all of them I function as a teacher, advisor, and physics expert. But for the last two weeks of the school year I’ve held very different roles: handyman, installer, and laborer in Antarctica.
The opportunity has been provided to me through NSF funding with help from the collaboration of NSF, IceCube and PolarTREC—a program that unites teachers with researchers in polar field research. IceCube has had several teachers visit the South Pole because part of its funding is based on outreach to classrooms. I applied to be a PolarTREC teacher and was happy to be placed with IceCube at the South Pole. My work with IceCube started several years ago. In July 2009 and 2010 I went to three weeks of IceCube training and summer camp teaching in Wisconsin. I learned about the Physics of neutrinos, how IceCube and IceTop work and even how to “Learn to Return” in a survival training class. But all the preparations of the past two years couldn’t have really prepared me for what it’s like here at the South Pole.

First of all, it’s beautiful. It’s blue and white and sunny and crystal clear like a sparkling chandelier hanging all around you all the time. The sun circles overhead daily without you even realizing it, it just constantly surprises you with casting new light on the mundane things you were already looking at. IceCube has brought me here, and for that I’m thankful.

Second, I wasn’t prepared for the people. The team here has great camaraderie. Everyone is on the same page: jovial, friendly and dedicated. Researchers, drillers, general assistants, and station crew return year after year. The community is so strong a pull that many haven’t been home for a Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years in several years. I heard someone say, “I wouldn’t know how to handle winter in the North.” referring to Wisconsin as home. And we’re here at the South Pole! “Wintering” here should be much harder than Wisconsin and yet, the gentle ease of the community here really makes it feel like home.

The IceTop group I’ve been working with has been welcoming and accommodating of my newbie status. Thanks to James Roth, Tom Gaisser, Chris Elliott, and BaBakhtiyar Ruzybayev for making this month so comfortable and fun.

Next, I have been surprised by the weather. It is very cold. That first day of work, kneeling on the tanks in the wind, trying to manipulate a drill and screws with thin glove liners on, I was sincerely concerned for my fingers. But since that day, I’ve become more comfortable with the cold. I can trust my gear, and I know I’ll make it. In the sunshine I don’t feel cold in glove liners, much. My face can sting and feet get stiff, but it feels more and more like DC in the winter than the swirling, freezing misery of a fictional, Hollywood South Pole. It’s just cold here, so you make sure to stay warm. That’s the big secret.

Finally, I wasn’t prepared for how possessive and proud I feel working with IceCube and IceTop. I feel like I want to sign every tank I’ve touched. I am so proud of doing a job well done installing a freeze control unit or cleaning out a dirty tank with bricks of snow. I am proud of struggling with frozen, heavy cables in a ditch with my fellow cable pullers. I signed my name on the cable holder brace at the end of the last cable pull ever today with sincere pride.

I am a happy teacher who’s wandered into a gorgeous and generous ice world. I no longer fear for my fingers and I understand the loyalty that draws Polies back year after year.