Teachers' Resource Pack
Teachers' Resource Pack
Antarctic Experience
For
Infants & Primary:
Make a list of creatures the students would expect to find in the
Antarctic. Keep the list until after Len's visit and compare it to the
animals that he photographed while he was there.
With the Antarctic
being so remote and not accessible during the winter months, get your students
thinking about the preparation that goes into such an expedition.
For the five to seven year olds simple get them looking at what they would have
to bring to school if they were going to stay for the week. Start with the
food needed for three meals a day
For High School:
Get the students thinking about isolation. Look at the preparation
needed for a solo sailing voyage of 14 days or 28 days during which time the vessel will
not be able to be resupplied. The Vessel has a fridge but no freezer, two
gas rings but no oven. So consider how long each piece of food will stay fresh.
The project could be to design an excel spreadsheet to simplify the task.
Station
Life and Work at Australia’s Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic Stations.
Text courtesy
Australian Antarctic Division.
The Australian Antarctic Division maintains three permanent year-round stations in Antarctica: Mawson, Davis and Casey, and a fourth on subantarctic Macquarie Island, as well as several summer only bases on the Antarctic continent. It also conducts long research voyages over the Southern Ocean. Operating the Stations and field bases and the marine research voyages needs people, and over the years this unique group, the community of ANARE, has grown to many thousands of Australians and foreign nationals.
Every year the Antarctic Division recruits about 80 people to winter at its four stations, and many more for the summer, when better weather allows more outside work. The men and women who work in Antarctica are drawn from all over Australia after extensive interviews and thorough medical and psychological adaptability testing.
While the stations are modern and comfortable, they are remote and isolated, and the environment is harsh. There is no road out of Antarctica during winter, so community success depends on the qualities and mix of the people. Expeditioners must be able to work and live together harmoniously, far from their family and friends, and this demands a blend of high-level occupational skills and personal qualities such as self-motivation, self-reliance, tolerance of others, good nature and the willingness to participate in communal duties and activities.
All new recruits receive intensive training in aspects of their professional or technical fields and special Antarctic skills such as cold weather survival, rescue techniques and community living.
The small size of station communities and the constraints of inhospitable weather, impose an special need to respect privacy and learn how to live with others in close, confined quarters. A close spirit, like that within families, is usually a feature of Antarctic community life.
During summer, when there may be daylight for 24 hours, many people find it difficult to sleep and some feel compelled to work through the night. In the midst of winter, when there is little if any light at all, some find their normal cycle of day and night disrupted and have difficulty getting out of bed in the ‘morning’.
Australia’s Antarctic stations have commercial standard kitchens staffed by professional chefs who, despite the limitations imposed by preserved food, produce a balanced and varied cuisine. Emergency stocks of food, enough to keep the station community going for 9 months, are stored well away from the main station buildings in case of fire. High-energy food for living in the field is supplied in 16 person ration packs.
All Expeditioners share chores, with ‘slushy’ rosters for kitchen and cleaning duties. Expeditioners take turns disposing of the garbage, and everyone supports scientific fieldwork. Many value the opportunity to learn new skills such as carpentry, mechanics and photography from their fellow Expeditioners.
Throughout the winter, each station is home to about 20 Expeditioners who undertake a variety of scientific and support tasks, physicists, meteorologists, biologists, a medical officer, engineers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, chef, mechanics and technicians, under the management of a Station Leader. During summer, the station population may swell to over 70 as more moderate weather and longer days allow intensive research, maintenance, and logistic programmes.
Typically, up to 45% of a station population will have wintered before. Recent wintering men to women ratios are about 8 to 1, a reflection mainly of the positions available, diesel mechanics, carpenters, electronics technicians and other fields traditionally dominated by men in the Australian community. Women have been employed as station leaders, scientists, doctors, communications officers, s\chefs, painters, plumbers, field training officers and stores officers, and the Antarctic Division promotes the employment of more women for the stations.
Although there have been dramatic changes in polar technology since the expeditions earlier last century; today’s Antarctic people are just as isolated as Mawson, Scott and Shackleton. Expeditioners and their families and friends still miss each other during the time apart and despite much improved communication between Antarctica and ‘home’, it is impossible to fully compensate for a person’s absence. The Antarctic Division provides counselling and support to all Expeditioners and their families before, during and after Antarctic service.
Text courtesy
Australian Antarctic Division.