National Geographic Grosvenor Fellows and Linblad Expeditions
I will be traveling August 9 – 26th, 2013 through Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland with the National Geographic Grosvenor Fellow Teacher Program on the ship the National Geographic Explorer. Gilbert M. Grosvenor, Chairman Emeritus of National Geographic, and Sven Linblad created this professional development program for educators. They are dedicated to providing this opportunity for educators on Linblad Expeditions in the Arctic. Educators share the importance of geo-literacy and ocean stewardship with guests and their communities when they return.
Here is our ship traveling near Ilulissat and the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland, a place our trip will visit.
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I am extremely fortunate to have been chosen for this amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This year 14 teachers were chosen from this highly competitive application process. I received the call telling me that I was chosen as a Grosvenor Fellow Teacher on a late Friday afternoon in February, after an exhausting week in the classroom. It is hard to believe that I am finally embarking on this expedition! My partner teacher, Crystal Thiele, teaches 5th grade in Brooklyn, NY. She and I met briefly in our training session in Washington, DC in April, and I’m excited to see her again.
National Geographic Board Room (Crystal Thiele (center), me, Tom Ritchie)
Itinerary
My trip starts with a commercial flight to Ottawa, Canada. A few days later, I will board a chartered flight to Iqaluit, Nunavut Canada. We will board the Explorer in Iqaluit and travel around Baffin and Devon Islands, across Baffin Bay and then down the West coast of Greenland. We disembark two weeks later in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and begin a series of flights home.
Expedition Map
Polar Junkie
Epic doesn’t even begin to describe this opportunity for me. I am a Polar Junkie. I first learned this term while sitting in my first training session with PolarTREC in Fairbanks, AK in February 2009. I was chosen to work with a group of international scientists with OASIS (Ocean, Atmosphere, Sea Ice and Snowpack) during the 4th IPY (International Polar Year). This began my journey into becoming a Polar Junkie, and much of it is chronicled in my PolarTREC blog. In the spring of 2009, I worked in Barrow, AK in -40°C (also -40°F) sampling for trace contaminants in the snow.
Snow Sampling
In 2010, I traveled to Oslo, Norway to participate in, and present at the IPY teacher and science conference. This led to a similar conference in 2012, in Montreal, Canada. All of these experiences opened up the world for my students and me. My seventh grade students could easily explain why the Polar Regions matter to someone living in Tucson, AZ. Furthermore; they could explain how our actions affect the Polar Regions. My daughter, Jeannie, even became a PolarTREC member and participated in the Joint Science Education Program in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland in the summer of 2011. She enjoyed that field experience so much that she is currently finishing up another one with the REU program at the University of Michigan’s Biological Station.
Fellow PolarTREC teachers in Oslo, Norway
As a Polar Junkie, I follow all polar news in all kinds of media. Last summer I helped answer student questions online for fellow polar educator from the UK, Antony Jinman, who spearheads a program called Education Through Expeditions. He was leading an expedition to the summit of Mount Barbeau on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut in honor of the Queen’s Jubilee. I am excited to be heading to Baffin Island, another area where he has also done many expeditions.
Currently, I spend a great deal of my spare time working on the website for a group of 400+ educators and scientists that are part of a newly formed, Polar Educators International (PEI). Skype, Go To Meeting, and a flexible sleep schedule come in handy as I work with people in Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, India, and across the U.S.
I’ve heard that the famous neurologist, Oliver Sacks, has the periodic table of elements everywhere in his life, including a shower curtain and bedding. I guess my life is surrounded by polar images. My favorite things among my many calendars, photos, books, and t-shirts are my hand-painted narwhals on my shoes, a hand-made stuffed narwhal from my niece, and a photo of my daughter Jeannie in front of the Summit, Greenland sign.
What’s Next?
I feel like a kid trying to sleep the night before a two-week long Christmas morning. There are visions of narwhals, polar bears, walruses, seals, icebergs, glaciers, Arctic terns, sea ice, native villages, and utter beauty streaming through my head. I’m reminded of one of my favorite moments in Barrow, AK. I was out on the sea ice talking to Stoyka, a Bulgarian scientist that worked for Environment Canada, and Roy, a native Inupiaq guide from Barrow. We were waiting for another scientist to finish trouble-shooting some equipment. The sun was feebly illuminating some polar bear tracks in the frost flower formations on the ice, while we stood sharing stories about our lives raising teenagers at home. In this surreal setting I realized that many things are truly universal. I wonder what new revelations I will find over the next few weeks. Stay tuned to find out.
Roy, our Inupiaq Guide