Trippin' to the Poles and the Blue Nose Ritual
Exercises in Latitude and Longitude and Polar Travel

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Hook
A recent trip to polar regions was made by TEA Sandi Kolb as she parcticipated in the sea trials of the new research vessel/ ice breaker the USCGC Healy. (United States Coast Guard Cutter Healy). She joined the Healy in Davis Strait to the west of Greenland and sailed as far north as 70 degrees Latitude. You're going to be looking up her voyage on her web page, but for now, do the following:

Materials

Procedure
A. Using maps and the globe find the Latitude and Longitude of each of the following places: 1- your home town

2- Godthab, Greenland (on newer maps the Inuit name NuuK) is used.

3- Barrow, Alaska

4- Kotzebue, Alaska

5- the center of the Bering Sea

6- McMurdo Base (Ross Sea), Antarctica

7- Amundsen-Scott Base (the South Pole)

8- Christchurch, New Zealand

9- Punta Arenas, Argentina

B. Find the distance between your home town and the South Pole. To do this use the globe and a piece of string.

C. Using the internet find a complete airline itinerary from your home town to Barrow, Alaska. ( Hint- try Alaska Airlines from San Francisco or Seattle to Anchorage, Alaska and then on to Barrow). Find out the fares. What time will you leave and what time will you arrive? How many time zones will you cross?

Now do the same thing from your home town to the South Pole: schedules, airfares, time zones. (Hint: from the West Coast you will take a commercial airline to Auckland, New Zealand, and then to Christchurch, New Zealand. From there you would be on a C-140 or C-5 to McMurdo, and then a C-130 to the South Pole. Look up these planes in your search engine).

D. Look up TEA Sandi Kolb's journal entries for May 12, 2000- the Blue Nose Ritual!../../kolb/5.12.2000.html. Read the journal entry. Does that sound like fun to you? Imagine yourself on the Healy. Write a short paragraph about your imagined experience. Read more about Sandi's adventures on the Healy and in Antarctica on this webpage.

Discussions Questions/Extensions ......
Prepare a poster called "My Trip to..." choosing one of the destinations above. Do a journal of your trip, of your great adventure. Use pictures from the web, from other sources, or some that you draw yourself based on your internet studies to make your poster.

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