This was a real-time event with PolarTREC teacher Casey O'Hara being broadcast from the South Pole Station, Antarctica. Casey presented on the IceCube telescope project and covered a bit about life at the South Pole station.
This article from the San Francisco Chronicle is about Casey O'Hara's upcoming expedition to Antarctica. It also includes some great photos from a pre-expedition icecream making lab. You can visit the article online here.
Students will use marshmallows to simulate toxins in the environment. Concentrations of these toxins will be modeled and calculated as they bioaccumulate up the food chain. Methylmercury and POPs are substances that bioaccumulate in the Arctic food chain. OASIS scientists studied these in Barrow, Alaska. (See Ocean Atmosphere Sea Ice and Snow (OASIS) Project at www.polartrec.com)
Students will discover how a simple action such as turning on a television will lead to toxins in our food supply. Many of these toxins concentrate in the Arctic because of long-range transport of pollutants in the atmosphere. Scientists in the OASIS project (http://www.polartrec.com/ocean-atmosphere-sea-ice-and-snowpack-interactions) study these pollutants in the Arctic. Students will learn about actions that they can take to
This versatile activity was inspired by my own Antarctic voyage (Lollie Garay, Oden Expedition 07) and The Amazing Race. As my students followed the journey through the Antarctic Seas on a USGS map, I realized what a great opportunity this was for them to "see" where I was in a part of the world so foreign to us
FAIRBANKS — A group of high school science and math teachers who could help unlock the secrets of the universe were in Fairbanks last week. The five teachers, who come from all over the Lower 48 as part of the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation, were training for the construction of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a telescope located at the South