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Antarctica
- 2. Mary MacKillop Gifted by the Spirit
- 3. May we be wise enough to see what God asks of us Wisdom
- 4. May we listen to God so we can understand what to do Understanding
- 5. May we also use this gift to be able to judge what is right for us Right Judgement
- 6. May we be courageous and face the future without fear Courage
- 7. Knowledge By the gift of knowledge, we trust God will guide us
- 8. Reverence May we treat our lives, our faith and others with reverence
- 9. Wonder and Awe May we give praise, love and thanks to God, asking for all we need
- 10. with Michael Salinas at Casey Station and 5/6CS *
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- 28. * *Add in screen shot of blog
- 29. * *Add in photo from Tuesday’s shoot
- 30. Forming learning teams and working with others. *
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- 32. Some of first attempts at caricatures
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Editor's Notes
- Earlier this year 5/6CS were offered a partnership with a scientist in Antarctica. This means you get to have contact with a real life scientist. You can find out about their work and how science is making a difference to our lives.
- Meet Michael Salinas, a weather man with the Bureau of Meteorology currently working in Antarctica at Casey Station. This is Michael at Wilkins Aerodrome, Antarctica when he first arrived last December. It was -15 degrees. Wilkins runway is actually made of ice.
- Michael said you can also travel to Antarctica on an icebreaker ship. It takes about 10 days from Hobart to Antarctica. This is a photo of a supply ship. Michael told us that at Casey Station they have over a years supplies of some things example food and fuel. The station gets new supplies every year in December, the warmest time of the year. Although Michael did tell us that they can run out of some supplies, and this year they ran out of soap and had to make their own. Last holidays Mrs. Corp was lucky enough to see the supply ship in Hobart.
- This is where Michael and the other expeditioners live while working at Casey Station. Its called the red shed. It has bedrooms, common rooms, bathrooms, offices,a gym, and a cinema room.
- Michael’s job is to release weather balloons twice a day, everyday to collect air samples to test air quality. The data can tell us more about things like global warming, rising sea levels etc.. Michael’s work day starts at 6.30 in the morning and finishes around 11.15 at night. He works for two days then has 2 or 3 off. Due to the lack of sunlight everyone in Antarctica has to take vitamin D every month and Michael told us it tastes disgusting!
- Some of the other work research at Casey station is the collecting of ice cores that can help us track the weather back 700 years. This is helping scientists gain understanding about weather changes and rainfall in the southern parts of Australia.
- The only plants that grow in Antarctica are different types of moss. Michael told us the moss looks like green hair growing off rocks.
- Over summer scientists also study penguins. This is a photo of an Adelie penguin. Adelie penguins are the smallest of the Antarctic penguins. One way to tell them apart from the other penguins is by their black head and the white ring around their eye. Michael told us they are very curious and will often stop and look at what you are doing. They can also slide very fast on their stomachs on the ice.
- Michael is quite a photographer too. This is one of his photos that he took. Sundog is a trick of the sun, which looks like there are 3 suns in the sky.
- Here’s another photo he took for us. A spectacular sunrise.
- This is Michael’s picture of AuroraAustralis, or southern lights. This is wind from the sun and this is what happens when it hits the earth. This wind sweeps toward Earth at speeds from between 300 to over 1000 km per second. That’s really fast.
- This is Michael’s photo of of the station carpenter experimenting on a cold day. He threw a jug of hot water in the air and it turned to ice instantly.
- Everyone in Antarctica celebrates the winter solstice. That’s the shortest day of the year, June 21st. Michael designed the invitation and it includes his picture of the Adelie Penguin sliding on the ice. This is our invitation but unfortunately we had to say we were unable to make it as our camp budget didn’t stretch that far!
- This is the menu for the 11 course dinner celebration. Michael told us the chef, Scotty, is very, very good and has worked in some top restaurants in Australia. They started the first course around 4pm and finished with the last course around 10pm. Sounds good to us.
- This is the Casey Station greeting card that was sent to the other stations in Antarctica wishing everyone a happy winter solstice. We also made some cards and sent them down to Casey for Michael to share with everyone.
- Michael sent us the greeting card from the Japanese Station that Casey Station received.
- Part of the Winter Solstice celebrations is to take an icy dip in a pool in just your ordinary bathers. This is Michael’s photo of this year’s pool. We were dying to know if Michael went for a swim, and of course he did!!! He told us the air temperature was about minus 18. The water was warmer at around minus 2. Michael jumped straight in, and then straight out. He swam for 2 seconds and then ran for the warm hut. Michael said you have to go in one at a time and the doctor is on hand to keep an eye on you as your body can go into shock. He also said that if the doctor wants to swim he has to go last!
- Last week Michael told us they had a blizzard with winds reaching 193km/h winds.Michael could only see 5m in front of him so he needed to use guide ropes called blizz lines to move around outside. Normally it takes Michael about 2 mins to walk back to the red shed, it takes more than 5 mins in a blizzard. And he has to put on 3 layers of clothes from head to toe.
- Every time we have a new email or photos from Michael we upload it to our class blog. Michael is also a visitor to our blog. Michael said when he was in grade 5 and 6 he used to make a monthly newspaper using a very old and now extinct, DOS computer, and his colour printer only printed in red! So when they ‘cut and pasted’, they literally got the scissors and glue out!!! We have also started a wiki page where we add our own research.
- Julia a reporter from the Waverley leader and Gill from CSIRO, who organised our science partnership, came to visit us two weeks ago to find out what we are learning.