[SEMCO] Virtual Expedition to Antarctica

[Michael Carlowicz]

Walking in a Real Winter Wonderland

Penguins sing, are you listening? Lava flows, snow is glistening. 
Through the use of the Web and satellite technology, researchers and 
communicators from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are bringing the 
sights, sounds, and smells of the season—-that is, the summer season in 
Antarctica—-to students and museum-goers across America.

In the third installment of WHOI’s Polar Discovery project, photographer 
Chris Linder and science writer Hugh Powell will accompany researchers 
who are continuing a 55-year-long study of Adélie penguins in the Ross 
Sea. They will then hitch a helicopter ride to the interior of the 
continent, camping with WHOI geologists and chemists on Mount Morning to 
study how ice and rock shape and carve each other over time.

Linder and Powell will send photos, audio clips, and daily dispatches 
from the field to the Polar Discovery Website from November 26 to 
December 23, while also talking to students and museum visitors via 
satellite phone during a series of “Live from the Poles” events.

Funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the International 
Polar Year, Polar Discovery takes the public on a virtual expedition to 
observe how polar exploration is conducted and to learn what real 
scientists are like—what excites them, how they cope with their 
environment, and what challenges they face as they try to gain a better 
understanding of our planet.

Related Links

Polar Discovery — http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/expedition3/index.html

Students, Museum Visitors, and Web Surfers Can Join First Search for 
Life on the Arctic Ocean Floor — 
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=9779&tid=282&cid=29346&ct=162

Polar Research at WHOI — 
http://www.whoi.edu/polar/topicIndex.do?id=801&o=read

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Michael J Carlowicz   http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=6118
Science Writer and Editor, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Mail Stop 54 - Bell House 101 - Woods Hole, MA 02543
Phone: (508) 289-3771       Fax: 508-457-2180
"We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our
exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the
place for the first time."  -- T.S. Eliot, from "The Four Quartets"
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