Sitting in a classroom always gets boring sooner or later. For two weeks, we had the chance to switch our typical classmates for penguins, seals, ice, and more penguins as we made our way to Antarctica, which is called the “Greatest classroom on Earth.”
Students on Ice (SOI), which has given Antarctica this title, is an organization that organizes educational expeditions for students each year to the Arctic and Antarctic.
“The expedition’s education program has three main goals. The first goal is to promote learning about polar fundamentals. The second goal is to engage people to consider environmental problems and solutions. The third goal is to encourage everyone to take responsibility, join generation G, and make change,” said Tim Straka, Education Director of SOI.
Our expedition to Antarctica included not only 65 students from around the world, but also a group of 25 SOI staff, veteran Antarctic researchers, journalists, and the ship crew. All of these people were happy to tell the students everything they knew and share their experiences, while the setting of their stories lay right outside the ship’s window.
The first days onboard weren’t too great. When the ship’s lounge was filled with people seasick, napping near trash-cans, moaning, and cursing the ocean, we knew we were crossing the Drake Passage to reach the Antarctic continent. Geologist Fred Roots attempted to distract us by telling us all about the land around us, and the sea that covered it up. He explained that the currents circled Antarctica clockwise and were then squeezed between South America and Antarctica, forming the infamous Drake Passage. Later, the students and staff walked the decks with barf bags in their hands all while pointing to a distant, exclaiming ‘breaching whale, over there!’
“I got the pictures of the humpback whales jumping out of the water all three times, this must be pretty rare. I am lucky I had my camera with me at the right moment,” said Chicago SOI participant Alex Brewer.
The Antarctic ornithologist Santiago Imberti pointed to penguins, discussing their mating habits, life spans, biology, and even the color of their poop. All the while, we were surrounded by thousands of the penguins on a tiny Antarctic Island. Completely unafraid of humans, they wobbled along in a straight line until they reached a cliff to the shore. They stood around for a long while until one impatient penguin shoved another into the dangerous waters. Then, the rest followed.
The polar expert Olle Carlsson explained why the penguins were so hesitant in their dives into the water, the leopard seal. The leopard seal would, if successful in its hunt, play a game of cat- and- mouse with the penguin. We crossed our fingers that no such seal would appear in the water, yet we oooh-ed and aaah-ed when we saw an adorable elephant seal sleeping on shore and scratching its belly and back. This scratching, Carlsson explained, was called molting, the shedding of skin, and we sympathized with the seal. At another island, we even saw seven of them piled between two rocks, portraying their liking for body contact. The cold ice beneath them did not seem to bother them, despite their lack of fur or feathers.
“Isn’t that amazing,” Carlsson always said in his Swedish accent after mentioning a strange fact about Antarctic wildlife.
Explorer David Fletcher planned a hike at 5:30 in the morning to the top of a steep glacier. We took two steps forward and one step back as our rain boots slid on the slippery slope or were stuck in the ice, but we made it to the top feeling a sense of victory and accomplishment. Later, after a good breakfast, we did it over again on another glacier and took ice core samples that have existed for as long as half a century. Fletcher explained just how valuable such research was and how these samples were artifacts of the past, air, weather, and even wildlife.
We took some deep breaths, and then we slid down the glacier. A half hour hike concluded with a 20 second slide. Students didn’t hesitate to climb back up only to slide down one more time. Everyone got to his or her feet slowly after the slides ended, checking for any holes in pants from the slide, and there were plenty to find. This activity was obviously fun, but by sliding down we gathered an understanding of ice texture, glacier steepness, and much more.
“My pant pocket came right off, but I didn’t care. The slide was worth it,” said Palestinian SOI participant Zayne Abudagga.
This type of constructive learning is perhaps one of the most effective ways to relish an education mainly because it involves all of the human senses. Students can truly experience and absorb their learning this way, even if it means sentencing themselves to a distinct penguin smell for weeks. And that is exactly what many of the 65 students admitted happened during the expedition.
We were chosen as ambassadors from Staten Island to experience Antarctica and share our experiences when we returned. We learned many things about penguins, seals, geography, history, and the Poles. We also learned that nothing is as educational as experience itself.
