Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 09/15/2011 - 12:07

Hello Mr. League, We are a group of kindergarteners from Weymouth, Massachusetts and we have spent the past many days trying to solve a mystery. One of our letter friends is missing and we have been trying to figure out "Where in the World is Ms. W?" She left a clue for each day : a globe with an attached note stating that she is on land, not water, a great book "Diary of a Worm", gummy worms(we figured Ms. W is with no ordinary earthworms), a tub of ice, a picture of Ms. W wearing her wild weather -word top and a video of penguins. This last clue helped us solve the mystery and our teacher revealed that yes, Ms. W is in Antarctica. We read a few of your journals, looked at many photos, and a couple of your videos, too. Your adventure certainly looks fascinating and we look forward to learning about Antarctica, its animal life and your dives to discover and study marine worms. Today we performed an experiment which taught us that penguins, whales and seals use their blubber to stay warm in the frigid waters. That led to our first question asked by Brandon: Do marine worms have blubber to stay warm? Also, all of the children would like to know: Have you seen Ms. W? Sincerely, Mrs. Casserly

Michael League

Hi Kindergartners,I think I can help you with this mystery! Given your clues, Ms. W. must
be some place cold that has penguins. You were very smart to figure out
that place must be Antarctica!
Ms. W. has been spotted here in Antarctica. In fact, I have seen her!
She is helping Theodore and the rest of the expedition team with our
WORMS, a "W" word. You can read a little bit about what she's been
doing by [clicking
here.](http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/adaptations-of-marine-worms-in-anta...)
Now to your other question.
Brandon,
What a great question! I hope my 8th graders are thinking like you do.
While whales, seals, and penguins use blubber to keep warm, worms do
not. In fact, the worms don't do anything to keep warm, they are the
same temperature as the water! That's the amazing part about these
worms - they have special skills which allow they to survive at
extremely cold temperatures, which would kill other animals. Dr. Marsh
and his team are trying to figure out what those special skills (called
adaptations) are!
Thanks for following along and stay tuned for more updates with Ms. W.!
Mike