Page 3 - Eureka 2011

A classroom on the

open seas Cover story

If you really want to learn about a three Arctic expeditions with Schröder- For the Carleton group, the fourth-
place, there’s no better way than to Adams and Natalia Rybczynski, a year field course would examine the
travel there and see for yourself. researcher at the Canadian Museum of history of the Antarctic continent,
That’s what seven Carleton Nature who would co-lead the Antarctic including the evolution of Antarctica’s
students and two faculty members field course with Schröder-Adams, but terrestrial and marine ecosystems,
did last February when they set off had always dreamed of visiting the which can tell us a lot about our
to explore the Antarctic Peninsula other Pole. planet’s extraordinary history while
and surrounding Southern Ocean. A few months before they were to offering us a glimpse of its future. On-
The group signed up with Students set sail, the students received the news board workshops and presentations,
on Ice, an organization that has been that three donors had come forward covering such topics as fossils,
taking students, scientists, explorers, to help cover some of the students’ volcanoes, Antarctic glaciology, marine
educators and polar experts to the expenses. Mitchell couldn’t believe their mammals, climatology, oceanography
Arctic and the Antarctic for the last 10 good fortune. “The generous gifts by and icebergs, would be supplemented
years. The impetus for the expedition the Gainey Foundation and alumni J.C. with land excursions.
came from Carleton’s Earth Sciences Potvin and Jim Sullivan lifted a huge The hands-on component of the Earth
professor Claudia Schröder-Adams burden off our shoulders,” Mitchell Sciences program is what sparked
who knew Geoff Green, the founder of says. “We could now fully concentrate Mitchell to pursue studies in this field.
Students on Ice, and had on several on our studies and prepare for the “Field courses make the subject matter
occasions discussed the possibility of upcoming journey.” come alive,” says Mitchell.
taking Carleton students on one of their
trips.
“You cannot transfer Antarctica into
the classroom. The immenseness of it,
the role of Antarctica in global climate
— all that is so much more intense
when you are actually there,” said
Schröder-Adams.
In the spring of 2010, she held an
information session for those interested
in a field course to the Antarctic. Forty
students showed up. The cost was
estimated at $12,000 each, a sum out
of reach for many of them. In the end,
seven students confirmed they were
going. For one of them, Travis Mitchell, Photos: Students on Ice
a graduate student in Earth Sciences,
the cost, though hefty, was not going
to deter him. He’d already been on

EUREKA 3