You may have seen the article on the front page of the Morning Journal yesterday already, but if not, you'll be interested to know that Marianne Kaput from Troy Intermediate School, Avon Lake City Schools will be leaving for Palmer Station, a research station in Antarctica. Marianne will join 4 researchers there as they study an insects (the Belgica Antarctica) ability to survive extreme temperature changes down to 50 below zero! Research findings could have far reaching effects for us. One of the largest benefits could allow transplant surgeries to be more successful by preserving organs longer! Other applications will be discussed as well.
We'll be conducting a total of 4 sessions for our Antarctica Annie sessions. Session 3 (1/19/06 9:00 - 10:00 A.M.) and Session 4 (1/25/06 9:00 -
10:00A.M.) will take place from the Antarctica Station. We'll be using their Satellite and taking most of their bandwidth to connect back to middle school students in Lorain County, Ohio, and the nation.
This project is available at several levels of interactivity. Students may connect for Session 3 and 4 only to visit with Marianne, or may choose to participate in a more advanced level using a "Creative Problem Solving Method" coordinated by our Gifited and Talented consortium. All four sessions are listed in the attached sign up sheet. Interested parties should fax this sheet back to be included.
Want to know more.
Here's some info directly from Marianne from a recent presentation about her voyage:
I'll fly from Cleveland Ohio to the tip of Chile to a place called Punta Arenas. Flying is only part of the journey. I'll ring in the New Year in Chile and then board a research vessel to Antarctica. There's no airport for a plane to land at Palmer Station where I'm going- the back yard is just glaciers!
Then we have to go through the dreaded Drake Passage- famous for being the roughest waters of the world! Antarctica took a long time to be
discovered because the early explorers could not make it across this strip of ocean. The waters are very rough with waves up to 30 feet! Up here around Lake Erie, there are small craft warnings called when waves reach around 5 feet! But not to fear, our ship is made just for travel like this- I sure hope I am! It has been said that you first must "Pay the Drake" before you can begin to appreciate and begin to enjoy Antarctica.
Anyway- I'm sure life at a research station will be quite different than teaching in a classroom. First, there are only 22 researchers there. We will be 5 of them! The 17 others will most likely conducting environmental studies, biological studies, meteorological studies and much more. I'll tell you more about who is there when I get there.
Sign up Today while we still have spots left! Visit our Calendar from our website at http://www.lcdlc.org/ to see all our Antarctica Annie Session listed during January & February.
Program Flyer: http://www.avon.k12.oh.us/distancelearning/Downloads/ProjectAntarcticaFlyer.doc
Dave Miller
Director of Distance Learning
Lorain County Distance Learning Consortium
1885 Lake Avenue
Elyria, OH 44012
440 324-5777 ext 195 Office
440 610-0782 Cell
dave.miller@leeca.org
