Get the Arctic into your classroom, May 2022

Help us bring the excitement of Arctic exploration to students across the US!

My name is Anne Conover. I'm a former HS science teacher, and this February I was contacted by Ramon Larramendi, a famous Spanish polar explorer. He's invited me to be one of a six-person expedition on a month-long crossing of the Greenland icecap, which will run from August 15th to mid-September, 2021. [Edit: the expedition will now run from May- June, 2022]

Ramon has traveled over 24,000 miles in polar terrain. For the past 18 years, he's been refining the Inuit Windsled, a zero-emissions, kite-propelled polar exploration vehicle that can carry up to 3 tons of scientific equipment. There's nothing else like it in the world.

We'll be using his windsled on our journey through the Arctic circle, as a team of international explorers and scientists, collecting data and installing a weather station. Although they've been assembling international teams for years, I'm the first American (and the first Texan!) to get the chance. 

Total expeditionary cost runs between $16,000 to $18,000, and any extra funds will be donated towards education. 

I'm a former science teacher (I taught 10-12th grade for a couple of years at Red Cloud High School in South Dakota, and assembled the outdoor/greenhouse curriculum for K-12th in our school district). I've also worked seasonally as a research technician in Yale's School of the Environment, and I'd love to use this experience as an opportunity to engage our students across the country.

Teachers: I'm a boring human who walks through the woods, looks at trees, and occasionally carries out research. If you're interested, feel free to contact me . I can do an individual zoom session with any of your classes, or we can work together to find something that works well for you, whether it's a short video filmed in the Arctic from the windsled addressed specifically to your class, small bits of data/measurements, or individualized messages that I can write to your students while crossing Greenland on the sled. 

Classroom outreach can take place either before or after the expedition: I can zoom into classrooms from now through May, and am also available post-expedition. [which will now be after mid-June, 2022]

Do feel free to reach out if you have any ideas for longer term projects with your classes!

Thanks, humans. Whether you're donating $3 or $30, every little bit helps!


 

P.S. If you're a teacher, this endeavor is meant for you. If you think this is lovely, and know people who want to contribute financially, fine ok donate. But what's really important, here, is getting sustained engagement with our students that is really low-maintenance for you.

We want to inspire students to explore the world around them, and help give them more joy as they conduct their exploration, whether they're using math, science, poetry, prose, music, or engineering.  My hope is that, with this Arctic expedition, we can pull off a low-key, high impact bit of outreach during horrible remote learning times. We can inspire exploration, and care for the natural world, while also helping alleviate (at least in a small way, for all our families, students, and teachers) the stress of this global pandemic.

You're the best, you're wonderful and incredible. 

If you'd rather see money go to support teachers directly, check out this website. It allows you to contribute to campaigns started by teachers around our country: https://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html. 

A sampling of scientific projects carried in the past can be found here: https://greenland.net/windsled/2018-19-scientific-projects/. This May expedition's main focus lies in communications, and we would also be installing a weather station.

Blog: if you'd like to stalk further to see if I'm a real human you'd want to invite into your classroom (or support), Ramon Larramendi apparently liked my blog enough to invite me to live in a tiny confined tent space with five other people on a gigantic wind-propelled kite-sled as we barrel through the Arctic for a month. Read it and weep: http://iatsailaway.wordpress.com. I told you all I do is look at trees. 

Article from the Windsled's previous expedition, in Antarctica: http://www.ends-of-earth.com/adventure/windsled-taking-scientific-research-in-antarctica-into-unexplored-territory/