Students on Ice Blog

Congratulations to Students on Ice Alumnus Jenna Gall (Arctic ‘09, Antarctica ‘09), a 2010 Weston Loran scholar!

Jenna will receive a renewable award comprising a living stipend matched by a tuition waiver from a partner university in Canada.

Loran Awards include mentoring, a summer program, and other scholar-initiated summer experiences.

To learn more more about the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation and Loran Awards, visit http://www.loranaward.ca/

Jenna Gall (Arctic ‘09, Antarctica ‘09), a Monmartre School student, was awarded a Weston Loran Award scholarship worth $75,000 over four years. It is the largest undergraduate merit scholarship in Canada.
Photograph supplied by Jesse Helmer, Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation

Montmartre School student wins $75,000 Weston Loran Award scholarship

by Tim Switzer, The Regina Leader Post

March 11, 2010

REGINA — Jenna Gall has never wanted to be stuck behind closed doors.

The 17-year-old grew up on a farm near Montmartre (though her family now lives in the town) where she developed a lifelong love for the outdoors. When she was 10, she ran her first 10-kilometre race. She spent much of her winters out on snowmobiles with the family.

Last summer, she started taking her fascination with the natural world to new lengths when she made her first trek to the Arctic with the group, Students on Ice. She spent three weeks on the expedition with 100-plus students and scientists doing research and observing icebergs and every imaginable type of wildlife.

When that wasn’t enough, Gall went the other way in December when she began a three-week stint in Antarctica with Students on Ice.

“They’re really the last places on the planet we have that are really wild and untouched by humans,” said Gall. “That wondrous, wild ‘wow factor’ led me to them.”

After graduating from Montmartre School this spring, Gall plans to further that interest while pursuing a science degree (specializing in environmental ecology) at either Simon Fraser University or the University of British Columbia-Okanagan in Kelowna.

That is going to be made a lot easier thanks to the Weston Loran Award scholarship which is worth up to $75,000 over four years. The award, handed out to just 15 graduating students in Canada each year, also includes a summer program and mentorship from past Loran scholars.

So with the cost of schooling taken care of, maybe Gall can slow down from her usual daily schedule.

“It really opened a lot of doors for me because if it wasn’t for the scholarship, I would still be going to university, but I would have to be working too,” said Gall. “In that sense, I know my marks would drop and I wouldn’t have time for the stuff I do now like volunteering and being in different groups.”

So, no slowing down then?

“I’ve never been able to just do nothing,” said Gall. “It closes doors when you’re not doing something.”

In just the last few years, Gall has created the Green Team environmental group in Montmartre, established a newspaper column to promote the group’s activities, formed a running club, led an after-school sports program for young children and coached and officiated soccer games.

Oh, and she runs the kitchen at the Trackside Inn five days a week.

“She never tires,” said Susan Sebastian, one the inn’s owners.

“It’s amazing. What she does in a day, I couldn’t do in a week. Sometimes I sit down and read Facebook and she has already jogged for three miles, done a light yoga session, went and visited her grandma and then has to go to work and then has make it to a hockey game that night.”

Gall credits much of her work ethic to the way she and her two brothers — 19-year-old Kent and 16-year-old Trent — were raised by their parents, Wayne and Darlene.

That has not gone unnoticed by others in Montmartre.

“I can think way back to when she was in Grade 6 or 7 and she was put in charge of babysitting all the young kids and she was always working a job,” said Dave Bircher, principal of Montmartre School. “This school year, she has probably focused more on getting involved in some different things around the school as well.

“She sets a goal for herself and she’ll do what she has to do to achieve it. Work ethic, hard work and perseverance kind of defines Jenna.”

For more information, visit http://www.leaderpost.com/

SOI congratulates Education Team Member Don Walsh on the Fifty-year Anniversary of his historic and pioneering voyage to land the Trieste, with Jacques Piccard, at the deepest ocean floor!

Early on the morning of January 23, 1960, in the rough Pacific sea, United States Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss engineer and oceanographer Jacques Piccard lowered themselves through the narrow opening into the cabin of the bathyscaphe, Trieste. As Walsh and Piccard watched the cabin door close and all natural light disappear, they were unaware of what might await them at the bottom of the ocean. Walsh piloted the Trieste toward the absolute darkness of Challenger Deep.

At 10,924 meters (35,840 feet), the pressure is roughly eight tons per square inch. The trench was believed to contain only skeletons, yet with the aid of Trieste’s lamps, Walsh and Piccard witnessed marine life. The Trieste landed on the ocean floor. When it surfaced nearly nine hours later, the Trieste had become the first vessel to reach the deepest part of the Earth’s ocean.

The record set fifty years ago remains the only manned mission to reach the deepest part of the Earth’s ocean, a unique scientific achievement and an amazing accomplishment in exploration.

Congratulations Don!

DON WALSH, PhD
Students on Ice Education Team Member

Don Walsh is an explorer, oceanographer and lecturer. Enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1948, he graduated from Annapolis in 1954. During a 24 year naval career he spent 14 years at sea, mostly in submarines including command. At retirement he held the rank of Captain. Don’s polar experience began with trips to the Arctic in 1955 and the Antarctic with the Navy’s Deep Freeze in 1971. He has worked at both North and South Poles and is eligible to wear the Antarctic Service Medal. The Walsh Spur (near Cape Hallett) was named for him in recognition of his contributions to the U.S. Antarctic Research Program.

Don may be best known for making oceanographic history in 1960 with Jacques Piccard when they dove 10,924 meters (35,840 feet) down in the Navy Bathyscaph Trieste to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, deepest place in the world ocean. For this historic descent, never duplicated since, Walsh was decorated by President Eisenhower at the White House.

Don is the Author of over 150 articles and papers, and has been an advisor for the White House, NOAA and NASA. He was appointed by Presidents Carter and Reagan to the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, was a member of the Law of the Sea Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of State, and served as a member of the Marine Board of the U.S. National Research Council from 1990 to 1993. In 2001 received the Explorers Club highest award, The Explorer’s Medal.

The Canadian Environment Network has just announced its call for applications to be a representative on the Canadian Government’s delegation to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). Please spread the word, consider applying for this position, or encourage someone you think is a strong candidate to apply! This is a remarkable opportunity to see how policy is made and to work for change within Canada’s delegation (only a handful of countries even bring youth on their teams!). The application is available here.

The topics this year are transportation, chemicals, waste management, mining, and sustainable consumption and production. Join youth from around the world to ensure that your voice is heard by decision-makers at the UN.

Call for Delegates
ENGO and Youth Delegates to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development

When: May 3-14, 2010
Where: United Nations Headquarters in New York
Number of ENGO delegates sought: 1 ENGO delegate and 1 youth delegate
Deadline to apply: February 8, 2010

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has invited the Canadian Environmental Network (RCEN) to select one ENGO and one youth delegate to participate in the official Canadian delegation to the eighteenth and nineteenth sessions of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-18/19).

The first meeting of this two-year cycle (CSD-18) is scheduled to take place from May 3-14, 2010 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. As a review session, CSD-18 is tasked with identifying barriers and constraints, lessons learned and best practices in implementation in the thematic cluster of transport, chemicals, waste management (hazardous and solid waste), mining and the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production. The delegates will also be expected to participate in the Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting (one week in February 2011) and CSD-19 (two weeks in May 2011).

For more information on the Commission on Sustainable Development, please visit www.un.org/esa/dsd/csd/csd_csd18.shtml.

To apply, please complete the online delegate application form (ensure that you have the latest version of Adobe Reader).

For more information, please contact Sarah Heiberg, National Caucus Coordinator, at 514-833-9810 or at sarah@cen-rce.org.

Selection Criteria:

* Experience and proven ability to work professionally in a multi-stakeholder setting;
* Credibility and respect for other participants;
* Ability to bring a national and strategic perspective to the Table;
* Senior representative of an ENGO (ENGO delegate) and member of a youth organization (youth delegate)
* Knowledge/experience in one or several sectors and understanding of cross-cutting issues specific to the CSD 18/19 thematic cluster;
* Awareness of international perspectives as they relate to domestic implications (and vice versa);
* RCEN member in good standing; and
* Commitment to the process.

Delegate Expectations:

* Consult with the wider ENGO (ENGO delegate) and youth (youth delegate) communities (via email or teleconference) before the meetings
* Consult with the wider ENGO (ENGO delegate) and youth (youth delegate) communities (via email or teleconference) following the meetings (as required)
* Consult with ENGOs, youth and other major groups during the meetings
* Actively participate in daily Canadian delegation meetings at the CSD sessions
* Respect delegation guidelines to participate in international meetings, adherence to Head of Delegation as authority of the Canadian delegation and have a diplomatic approach
* Submit satisfactory reports (minimum two pages, including questions and template) to the Caucus Coordinator following the meetings
* Be punctual, have adequate preparation and provide regular email updates (at least one per week) during the meetings.

For more information, visit http://www.cen-rce.org/eng/consultations/delegate_calls/10_01_CSD.html

Applications open for the ACTIVATE 2010 National Youth Leadership Conference

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: January 28, 2010

Motivate Canada is pleased to present its 6th annual national youth leadership conference, which will take place at Carleton University in Ottawa from May 12 to 16, 2010. Canadian youth, aged 16 to 22, with an interest in leadership, sports and community development are strongly encouraged to apply before January 28, at the following link: http://www.motivatecanada.ca/en/page-47.

“As an ACTIVATE Alumni, I’ve had the opportunity to experience this amazing program firsthand. It reinforces the simple but powerful ideas of youth-led development, leadership, teamwork and community involvement” says Ena Ujic, ACTIVATE 2007 delegate and ACTIVATE 2010 volunteer.

“This program has played a huge part in shaping who I am today, and has contributed greatly to my personal development. I can’t wait to assist the 2010 ACTIVATORS in their pursuit of developing a generation of healthy, active youth across Canada” she adds.

Youth from across the country will engage in a 5-day conference empowering them to create positive change in their communities. The conference, which is planned and implemented by youth, builds on shared positive experiences and spreads the spirit of sport, physical activity and recreation to result in active and healthy communities across Canada.

Participants will pay a fee of $400.00 to attend the conference. All transportation, accommodation and meal expenses will be covered by Motivate Canada and its donors.

“Sport, physical activity and recreation have an incredible power to unite people and influence positive social change. If you don’t know where to start, come to ACTIVATE 2010 and be inspired and meet 50 other like-minded youth, some of whom will be your friends for life!” says Danielle Vienneau, ACTIVATE Program Manager.

For more information, please contact Danielle at: activate@motivatecanada.ca.

http://www.motivatecanada.ca/en/page-47

DEADLINE FOR NOMINATIONS: January 24, 2010

Do you know an Aboriginal youth who wants to make a positive difference in their community? Do they have an interest in sport, physical activity and/or recreation and leadership? If you answered YES to any of these questions, you should nominate them to attend ACTIVATE North!

Motivate Canada is looking for Aboriginal youth, between the ages 16-24, living in Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, to attend the ACTIVATE North Aboriginal Youth Leadership Conference being held in Yellowknife, NT from March 24-28, 2010.

ACTIVATE North is a 5-day conference all about the potential of YOUth!

http://www.motivatecanada.ca/en/page-42-activate-north

Students on Ice is pleased to announce a conference being co-organized by Alumnus Rosie Simms (Arctic ‘06, ‘08 & SOI Former Intern): Uncharted Waters – Connecting Academia and Activism on Water Issues, March 26-28, 2010 at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Congratulations Rosie!

Français suit.

Are you interested in water issues? Curious about how water is the common current through privatization, issues of access, and environmental degradation?

Then come to the three-day student-led conference on water issues!

Uncharted Waters is an interdisciplinary conference that aims to bridge the gap between academia and activism, connecting youth to those already dedicated to working towards the necessary solutions for a soft-path water future.

Including workshops on:
- The impacts of hydroelectric development, with Alliance Romaine
- Soft-path water management, with the Polis Project
- Water privatization, with Meera Karunananthan of the Council of Canadians
- Youth and Water Activism, with Ashley Hellyer and Zoë Barrett-Wood
- First Nations issues of access to water
- Water and the tar sands, with Montréal Contre les Sables Bitumineux

Don’t miss the keynote address by Canadian Chair of the UN Water for Life Decade, Bob Sandford! (Open to all)

Be part of this exciting initiative and make your voice heard as the groundwork is laid in the creation of a youth water movement!

Registration is 35$ before March 1st ($40 after)

To register and for more information check out the website: www.unchartedwatersconference.ca

More interested in Water Policy Issues? Check out the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada Conference on March 25-26.

www.mcgill.ca/water2010

Connecter le Militantisme et le Milieu Universitare sur les Problèmes Hydrologiques 26 au 28 – mars 2010 à l’université McGill

Es-tu interessé par les problèmes hydrologiques? Curieuse de savoir comment l’eau est le lien entre la privatisation, l’accessibilité et la dégradation environnementale?

Alors, viens à une conférence de 3 jours organisée par des étudiants sur les problèmes hydrologiques!

Uncharted Waters est une conférence interdisciplinaire visant à faire des liens entre le milieu universitaire et le militantisme, à connecter la jeunesse avec ceux déjà dédiés à la création de solutions contribuant à un futur social pour l’eau.

Ateliers sur, mais ne se restreignant pas seulement à cela :
- Les effets du développement hydroélectrique, avec Alliance Romaine
- Gestion sociale de l’eau, avec le Polis Project
- Privatisation de l’eau, avec Meera Karunananthan du Conseil des Canadiens
- Jeunesse et Militantisme Hydrologique, avec Ashley Heyller et Zoë Barrett-Wood
- Problèmes d’accessibilité à l’eau des Peuples des Premières Nations
- L’eau et les sables bitumineux, avec Montréal Contre les Sables Bitumineux

Ne manques pas le discours du conférencier clé par la Chaire Canadienne de la décennie L’eau, source de vie de l’ONU, Bob Sandford! (Ouvert à tous et toutes)

Fais partie de cette initiative excitante et faire entendre ta voix lors de la formation d’une base permettant la mobilisation de jeune autour des problèmes hydrologiques!

L’inscription est 35$ avant le 1er mars (40$ après)

Pour t’enregistrer et pour plus d’information, tu peux consulter le site web: www.unchartedwatersconference.ca

Plus interessée par les problèmes de politques d’eau? Consulte la conférence de L’Institut d’études canadiennes de McGill le 25, 26 mars.

www.mcgill.ca/water2010

Posted by Jesse Tungilik to www.ookpik.org

The IPY Oslo Science Conference will be the largest polar science event to date! Twice as large as the last, and up to then largest, global polar science meeting in terms of submissions. It will demonstrate, strengthen, and extend the International Polar Year’s accomplishments in science and outreach. The conference is an essential opportunity to display and explore the full breadth and implications of IPY activities. The international and interdisciplinary science conference will in particular highlight the global impact of the changes that have been observed in the Polar Regions.

The IPY-OSC steering committee received more than 2200 abstracts from 58 countries on deadline, however, as a courtesy to some partners, in particular Antarctic scientists returning from the field, the committee has decided to slightly extend the deadline until January 25, 2010.

Submit your abstract now!

PLEASE NOTE: PolarTEACHERS can still apply, and PolarCINEMA receives entries until February 15, 2010.

Over 100 conveners are being brought together to review the submitted abstracts, which are categorized into 6 overarching conference themes including:

Theme 1. Linkages between Polar Regions and global systems
Theme 2. Past, present and future changes in Polar Regions
Theme 3. Polar ecosystems and biodiversity
Theme 4. Human dimensions of change: Health, society and resources
Theme 5. New frontiers, data practices and directions in polar research
Theme 6. Polar science education, outreach and communication

Limited travel support is available for researchers through the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. Priority will be given to young researchers and educators. These travel grants are available for US researchers, teachers and foreign scientists working at US institutions.

More information can be found here.

The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) also provide travel grants for early career scientists to attend the IPY Oslo Science Conference. A special committee appointed by the conference organizers will coordinate the selection procedure.

Further announcements regarding the stipend and travel support for early career scientists and an overview of conference activities especially focused on early career scientists can be found on the APECS website.

Photo by Blair Gable

Coming out of the dark: Christopher Morris’s Night plays at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre

By James Bradshaw – From Thursday’s Globe and Mail
Published on Wednesday, Jan. 06, 2010 5:44PM EST

A year ago, Abbie Ootova was in a bad way, her outlook on life as gloomy as the perpetually dark winter Nunavut sky above her. She had fallen in with the wrong young man, lost her direction in life, and been kicked out of the family home by her father.

“I was totally trouble last year. You know, teenagers. Boys and girls,” the 16-year-old from Pond Inlet says.

Now, she is taking to the stage at the National Arts Centre (NAC) in Ottawa as one of the leads in a world premiere play that seeks to bridge the divide between “the North” and “the South.” Her return to the theatre has given her life a crucial recalibration.

“I feel like I’m a lot better. It feels like I’m in the world again. Last year was so hard for me. Acting is a part of who I am,” she says.

Ootova plays Piuyuq in Night , written and directed by Christopher Morris, artistic director of the ambitious Toronto theatre startup Human Cargo. A result of creative workshops in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, and Iceland, the show explores the flawed relationship between Canada’s remote northern aboriginal peoples against the backdrop of the months of 24-hour darkness these communities experience each year.

After 12 days at the NAC, it will travel to Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Inuvik, and Morris hopes to add Gananoque and Toronto to the tour.

Ootova began exploring her artistic side with square dancing when she was 10 years old.

Her creative quiver now includes acting, throat singing and other musical endeavours. She first met Morris on his inaugural trip to the North.

Like most of Morris’s projects, Night began with an idea and a plane ticket. He had heard about Scandinavians committing suicide during the round-the-clock winter darkness and wanted to explore the phenomenon. In 2004 he chose Pond Inlet from a map and set out with only one contact, an introduction from a mutual friend, to steer him when he arrived.

While there, he was asked to help pull together a play, The Wolf , to be performed during Drug and Alcohol Awareness Week. Among its cast was 10-year-old Ootova, and both remember their first impressions of each other.

“She was just this really cute kid,” Morris says.

“He was totally dude, you know?” Ootova recalls.

Three years later, Ootova showed up at a youth workshop Morris was hosting in Pond Inlet. The two barely recognized each other at first, but the encounter led them to collaborate on a string of local shows. At the time, Morris had 27-year-old Iqaluit native and Genie Award nominee Annabella Piugattuk in mind for Night , but after she backed out for personal reason, Morris settled on Ootova.

The NAC came on board in 2007 after the first of three four-week workshops to improvise ideas for the play, which came to the attention of NAC English Theatre boss Peter Hinton. Remarkably, the show marks the first “project from the North” in the NAC’s 40-year history.

Paula Danckert, the NAC dramaturge who oversaw Morris’s writing of the final script last year, said that was because of the immense resources needed to get it off the ground. Night was considered “a very big risk, in a way,” not only for its funding and travel challenges, but also for the time it took to build trust between the Inuit and the many southern participants who came and went throughout the process, Danckert says. But Morris had done so much of the work of his own initiative, and the project’s implications for the NAC’s national mandate were exciting.

The theme of 24-hour darkness, which led Morris north in the first place, is now more of a backdrop, a “metaphor for our relationship to each other,” Morris says. At one workshop, Morris asked two Inuit and two southern Canadians who their first contact with the other group had been. The Inuit answered a priest and an RCMP officer. The southerners said an adopted child and a homeless man.

“I wondered, what do we think of each other?” Morris asks.

Danckert described the thrust of the show as creating curiosity and interest between Canada’s cultures. “Understanding, maybe, comes later,” she says.

But Ootova is eager to accelerate that process and wears the emotional pain of the injustices done to her people by Canadians – specifically “whites” – on her sleeve.

“We’re hurt. We’re hurt,” she says. “We have to say to white people [that] we’re not dogs.”

Still, she separates the actions and attitudes that have so angered her from the people themselves: “You guys are good friends of mine,” she adds, cheerily, of white Canadians.

And though she is fiercely proud of independent and unique Inuit traditions, she is anxious for Night to help close the North-South gap, not widen it.

“Being Canadian, I want to show Canada how it feels up North,” she says.

The Ottawa Citizen features Geoff Green as one of Ottawa annual “People to Watch in 2010.”

Photograph by: Julie Oliver, Ottawa Citizen

Written by Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen (January 7, 2010)

Geoff Green believes the students he takes to Antarctica and the Arctic will change the world — or at least be forever changed by the journey. As Joanne Laucius discovers, he’s built on that instinct with 10 years of hard work and the results are impressive.

A procession of tens of thousands of penguins on a remote volcanic beach got Geoff Green thinking about taking teenagers to Antarctica.

Green, the skipper on the expedition, saw the jaws of the most jaded travellers drop as they watched the twin rivers of chinstrap penguins — one white as the penguins marched to land to feed their waiting young, the other black as their backs retreated to the sea.

“As a human visitor, you really feel out of place and humbled and inspired and at peace,” says Green. “I thought: Imagine if we could give this experience to youth at the beginning of their lives.”

That was 10 years ago. Fired up with his idea, Green returned to Canada, set up an office in the breezeway of his parents’ house in Picton, started knocking on doors and maxed out seven credit cards.

A lot of doors slammed in his face. A few brave school boards — imagine the liability jitters of sending teenagers to Antarctica — agreed to sponsor a handful of students. Other teens hunted down their own sponsors. Scientists from the Canadian Polar Commission agreed to accompany the expedition. Later, one joked with Green that it was only because they thought it would never happen.

Since then, Students on Ice has taken 1,200 young people from 40 countries to the Arctic and the Antarctic with some of the world’s top scientists. (An Antarctic expedition is currently underway. So far, the crew has cruised with giant fin whales and visited Deception Island, home to a recently active volcano. Follow the journey at: studentsonice.com)

Green, now based in Chelsea, believes the wonder of a pod of whales or an iceberg can have a karmic boomerang effect with ripples around the world.

Last month, there were a dozen Students on Ice alumni in Copenhagen. Others have gone on to become scientists, artists and writers. Two are Rhodes scholars. An alumna from Beijing wrote a book about the poles. Another from Dubai became a radio host and columnist. An alumnus from Toronto is campaigning to create a sanctuary for bowhead whales on the east coast of Baffin Island.

“Some of them really do try to change the world,” says Julian Starr, a botanist with the Museum of Nature and the University of Ottawa who has been on two trips with Students on Ice.

“Some will become activists,” he says. “The experience is so mindblowing, the environment so raw, that they’ll never forget.”

Going to the Arctic with Students on Ice in 2007 sealed Katrina Adams’ decision to become a marine biologist. The McGill University student is on an exchange at the University of Queensland in Australia. Last summer, she spent two months at the Mingan Island whale research station on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

“I was always interested in whales, but after literally seeing eye to eye with an orca in the Hudson Bay, I knew that these magnificent animals were what I wanted to study and try to conserve.”

The new explorers won’t be climbing the highest mountain. They’ll be finding new energy systems, medicines, new ways of living, says Green.

“Our leaders are leading us nowhere fast. Maybe we need to lead the leaders. It’s where youth can pay a powerful role.”

Expeditions to the polar region’s cost around half a million dollars. A decade after Green began, about 80 per cent of the students’ trips are fully funded and he believes that soon they will all be funded. Sponsors include the Brita water filter company, Prince Albert of Monaco and New York City, which sends a student from each of its five boroughs. Microsoft paid for two student berths on an expedition in exchange for Green appearing in a pair of ads.

“I’m a PC and this is my office,” Green says to the camera with a vista of blinding polar blue stretching out behind him.

Stan and Sandy Green had an exploration prodigy on their hands in farm country near Bowmanville. Geoff was adventuresome, but cool-headed, a wonder at logistics, and had a talent for making and keeping friends. It never occurred to him to be daunted by anything.

“He lights up a room. He doesn’t try,” says Sandy. “It just happens.”

She sometimes worried about him, but Stan, an elementary school principal, insisted the best gift they could give their son was independence.

In Grade 12, Geoff wanted to go on an exchange trip to Switzerland but didn’t have the French prerequisites. He took a Grade 10 course. When he returned after three months, he was bilingual.

A few years later while travelling in Europe — “I was in university for the wrong reasons” — Green ran out of money in Italy and got a job as the captain of a yacht, despite the fact that the largest body of water he had ever sailed in was Lake Ontario. (“I was 20. I lied and said I was 25.”)

From there, Green led expeditions for wealthy adventurers and film crews to the south Pacific, the Russian far east, Madagascar. In 1992, he was invited to lead an expedition to Ellesmere Island, something he had never done.

“I didn’t have a clue,” Green says. “I was hooked.”

Green, who has sailed through the Northwest Passage three times, says climate change is something you can see with the naked eye. “You could kayak through it.”

Going to Antarctica is like joining a cult, he says. Cellphones and video games aren’t allowed, and even if they were, it would be impossible to text message friends back home. The seasick passage from the tip of South America strips away everything, only to build it back up again, he says.

The students have seen things few people have ever seen before. That includes a pod of orcas with a calf advancing on a group of three seals and knocking them off the ice.

Green assumed the killer whales were moving in for a meal. Instead, the orcas appeared to be teaching the calf how to hunt seals. When they were finished, the orcas allowed the terrified but unharmed seals back on the ice. Then the calf swam to the expedition’s zodiac and got eye to eye with the humans.

“That changes connections to nature forever,” says Green. “That’s the magic of the Antarctic.”

Stan and Sandy Green have both been on expeditions. “It’s everything that good education should be. It’s hands-on, it’s real-world, it’s cutting-edge,” says Stan.

“He’s got kids out there seeing it, feeling it, tasting it and making a difference in the world.”

Green has made a difference to scientists, too, says Julian Starr. If he had gone on his own to Baffin Island to collect Arctic plants, the trip would have cost $50,000.

“That guy has the leadership gene. And I’m happy he does, or we’d never have been there,” says Starr. “We need more people like Geoff Green. He’s not Brigitte Bardot.”

As for Green, he points to the epitaph on the grave of his hero, Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer who was buried on South Georgia Island far off the southeastern coast of Argentina in 1922.

“I hold that a man should strive to the uttermost for his life’s set prize.”

“In today-speak, that would be: ‘Just go for it,’ ” says Green.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

The Hamilton Spectator by Mark McNeil

You’ve heard about the March of the Penguins.

Well, here’s another journey that’s almost as inspiring:

It starts in Toronto with a flight to Miami. Then onto Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina. Total flying time — 18 hours.

Then there’s a 1 1/2-day ship passage aboard an “ice class vessel” to the Antarctic Bay to take a Zodiac and other vessels to the icy shore.

Length of the journey: more than 15,000 kilometres.

Local Grade 3 teacher Jacqueline Phillips is among a group of staff and high school students on the trip of a lifetime organized by Gatineau, Que.-based Students on Ice.

And through the magic of the Internet, she will keep in touch with her students at Gatestone Elementary School in Stoney Creek with daily blog posts.

Phillips is among nine chaperones on the trip that leaves today and lasts till Jan. 11. She will be joined by a staff of 14 scientists, oceanographers and glaciologists, as well as an artist and 65 students from Canada and around the world.

Phillips says the ship has six laptops that students and staff can use and once a day the ship will upload the information onto the Internet via satellite.

“While I’m away, the students with their supply teacher can log on every day to see where we are and what we’re up to,” she said. “They will be able to see pictures and keep track of me while I’m away.

“It’s great for (the students) to see me down there exploring. After I come back, we can have conversations in the classroom about climate change and environmental sustainability.”

Niki Trudeau, Students on Ice participant co-ordinator, says students on the trip are encouraged to spread the word about it while it’s taking place and after they get home.

“We describe the experience as being a transformative learning experience,” she said.

“We hope the students gain a respect and understanding of the place and how it relates to their lives at home. They will hopefully understand how … actions at home more directly have an impact on polar regions than you would think.”

Trudeau took part in last year’s trip and is going again this year.

“It’s awe-inspiring. It’s spectacular. It’s beautiful. It’s remote. It blows you away.”

So what does one bring for such a journey?

A good coat, for one thing. It’s summer there but temperatures are still brisk, hovering between -10 C and 10 C.

A camera and sunscreen are a good idea. And so’s a bathing suit — Trudeau says the students will take a dip in the ocean, taking advantage of geothermal activity in the area.

Students on Ice Founder and Executive Director Geoff Green has been selected as one of Ottawa’s “People to Watch in 2010.” The Ottawa Citizen chose 12 Ottawans whose “ideas are driving the future – around the corner and around the world.” Click here to read the story!