New Carlisle News Article About My Expedition!

New Carlisle Teacher Headed To Arctic
Written by Mike Kelly
New Carlisle News, New Carlisle Ohio, 45344
Wednesday, 26 May 2010 21:09

The 2009-2010 school calendar is coming to an end. Students are ready to head to the pool, oil up their bikes and skateboards, improve their skill on their Wii consoles...let’s just say anything but reading textbooks or writing reports.
School educators are ready for the rest as well. Some catch up on household chores, spending time with the family …let’s just say anything but reading textbooks or writing reports.
Both educators and students would like to spend their summer in the warm weather. That’s not the case for Tecumseh seventh grade teacher Angela Greene. Only weeks after school is dismissed, she will not be heading to a warm, sandy beach, but rather a two week excursion to the Arctic.
Greene, along with eleven other teachers from throughout the United States, will be participating in an Earthwatch Institute education expedition entitled “Climate Change at the Arctic’s Edge”. The adventure will be located at the edge of the Arctic Circle in Manitoba, Canada, near the Town of Churchill, which is also known as “The Polar Bear Capital of the World”. Peter Kershaw, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Alberta, and Carley Basler, Research Technician and Earthwatch Coordinator, are the principal investigators for this expedition.
“I love to do this kind of stuff,” she said. “I try to seek out these kinds of things in the summer. I’m always looking for amazing experiences, that’s my quest, to be able to do these awesome things and bring them back to my students.
“I’ve studied geology in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone; I climbed my first mountain, studied several summers at Stone Laboratory (the oldest freshwater biological research center) on Lake Erie and now this.”
The project Greene and her teammates will be working on seeks to build a long-term monitoring network designed to measure the ecological impact of global warming.
“I had one of my student’s ask me if I believed in global warming,” Greene said. “I told him I wasn’t sure now, but I would have a pretty good idea after I got back.”
At present, the ground is frozen year-round within as little as a few decimeters of the surface, locking in organic matter accumulated since the land emerged from the ocean after deglaciation. Should these organic deposits thaw, decomposition would release carbon dioxide and methane, the two most significant greenhouse gases.
Greene and the other participants will help to quantify the current state of the dominant ecosystems in the region. Once this goal has been accomplished, future changes can be evaluated against the benchmark data.
Greene said the group will be staying at an old military base and will not be allowed off-base without an armed guard because of the danger of polar bears.
The story of Greene’s adventure to the edge of the Arctic Circle will serve as a teaching tool for next year’s eager class of seventh graders. But even before the teacher returns to the classroom, interested students and members of the community can follow her daily blog at angelagreene.blogspot.com. “I’m going to try to update it daily if I can", she said.
The expedition is sponsored by Northrop Grumman. Earthwatch’s mission is to engage people worldwide in scientific field research and education to promote the understanding and action necessary for a sustainable environment.