The Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship is billed as "The Professional Development Opportunity of a Lifetime", and if anything that description is something of an understatement. As we traveled around the Svalbard archipelago and down the coast of mainland Norway, each day brought a swarm of lesson and project ideas. I know that this journey will continue to inspire my teaching for years to come. However, this experience was not just professionally transformative, but just as much so on a personal level. It is one thing to read about how the climate in the arctic is changing, or to watch a documentary detailing the impacts of plastic pollution, but it is quite another to see these things with one's own eyes.
On this 17 day adventure I saw whales and walrus, seals and polar bears, reindeer and so many birds. I rode through icy waters in zodiacs among luminous blue icebergs to the face of tidewater glaciers. I got to know the resilient plants and lichens that eke out a living on the permafrost. I stared out over a frozen sea while ice floes crunched against the hull. I immersed myself as literally as possible in the arctic by taking the Polar Plunge just 647 miles from the North Pole. I gaped at the soaring cliffs, draped with crooked pine trees and lacy waterfalls, rising thousands of feet out of the glassy waters of picturesque fjords. Day after day we sailed through and hiked across one stunning landscape after another.
All of this glorious landscape is not immune to the impacts of human behavior, however. The walrus population is just now recovering from centuries of commercial hunting. The same can be said for the whales (though Norway does still engage in commercial whaling). At almost every landing site we were greeted with plastic waste washed up with the seaweed and drift wood. Much of this trash was cast offs from commercial fishing (floats, line, netting), but we also found bottle caps, food packaging, fuel canisters, and fabrics. The majority of the plastic showed signs of having been out in the environment for a fair amount of time showing that it traveled some distance to be here. Svalbard sits around the place where the Gulf Stream current enters the Arctic Ocean. It occurred to me that it is entirely possible that carelessly dropped plastic trash from here in Houston that ends up in our bayous and washes into Galveston Bay could wind up riding the current all the way to Svalbard. This trash is not just ugly though. Several of our naturalists told us stories about finding walrus, reindeer, and other wildlife entangled in the plastic detritus.
Another human impact I saw first hand, particularly in Svalbard, was the effects of a warming climate. Many of the naturalists and crew have been traveling in the high arctic for years, and in some cases decades. Everywhere we went we heard about how far this glacier had retreated or how much more sea ice there was or how species like orcas and gannets have moved north over the last 20 years. One morning we were called on deck around 6:30 because there were 5 polar bears on the hill in front of the ship. This was on the east coast of Spitzbergen, the largest island in Svalbard, and well south of the pack ice habitat the bears are adapted to. Polar bears are notoriously antisocial, so to see so many so close together, while exciting for us travelers, is highly unusual. The naturalists suspected there was a carcass of some kind that had drawn them here, but the whole scene was indicative of the stress the bears face as a result of the loss of the sea ice.
The Svalbard archipelago was first recorded by Willem Barentz (better know in English as William Barents) in July of 1596 on his 3rd voyage attempting to find a Northeast Passage from Europe to China. He named the islands Spitsbergen meaning "pointed mountains" and found the waters around them so choked with pack ice that they could go no further north and turned east. (Eventually Barentz and his crew were stranded on Novaya Zemlya as the ice closed in and endured the arctic night there. Barentz died at some point on the return voyage, undertaken in 2 open boats in the summer of 1597, but is memorialized today as the namesake of the part of the Arctic Ocean between Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya which is known as the Barents Sea.) Even before reaching Svalbard in 1596, Barentz encountered drift ice. Four hundred years later there is no sea ice south of the northern coast of Svalbard.
When traveling, I seldom name the people among the highlights. That is not at all the case with this journey. I do not think that I have ever had the pleasure to be surrounded by so many extraordinary people all at once. My fellow Grosvenor Teacher Fellows, Caitlyn, Chris, and Nikia, are all the kind of teacher I hope to be when I grow up (which can really be said of this whole cohort of Fellows). Traveling with them was an absolute pleasure and I am grateful to have been able to hear their perspectives about the expedition and how they hope to bring it back to their students. Our GTF mentor Steve and the whole naturalist team aboard the National Geographic Endurance were the best guides I could have hoped for on this journey. Each one was exceptionally knowledgeable, with an infectious passion for the natural and human history of the places we explored on our voyage. Visiting scientists Rachel and Brooke engaged the guests and us GTFs in their research on micro plastics in the water and air. Then there were the guests, uniformly wonderful and interesting. It is a somewhat challenging time to be a teacher, but everyone I had the pleasure of conversing with on the expedition was not just curious about the work we do as teachers and our role as Grosvenor Teacher Fellows, but encouraging and supportive. I am especially grateful to Mary and Peter, Lesley and Larry, Ken, Susan, Pierre, Carol, and, and, and... for sharing photos from the expedition, personal stories, and for being all around amazing people.
So the questions I think I was asked more than any other were variations on "what are your main takeaways?" and "how will you take this back to your students?". To be honest, I am still working through the answers to those questions. I have so many lesson ideas and so many valuable takeaways. This expedition reminded me once more of the importance of experiential education. I saw first hand the impacts our human activity and the ways we choose to use natural resources has on the arctic in the form of retreating glaciers, plastic pollution, and lost sea ice. The challenge I now face is creating learning experiences for my students that help them see and feel their connection, from this subtropical urban setting, to the arctic. During our Meet-the-Teacher event yesterday I ran a slideshow of pictures and videos from my expedition. I realized that before it is a lesson plan, a project, or a presentation, my expedition is an opportunity to start a conversation with people. Some of those people are my students, some are their parents, some are my colleagues, and some are members of the wider community. In any case, the stories I have to share are a jumping off point for understanding how we can all act as better, more responsible stewards of the world we share with our fellow humans, blue whales, walruses, reindeer, rattlesnakes, sequoias, penguins, alligators, butterflies, wild flowers, and the rest of the innumerable members of our global community.
I am immensely grateful to Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic for this experience. They have made me feel not just valued as an educator, but valued and supported.
Below are some links related to the expedition.
Journey slideshow All pictures and videos are by me except for the polar plunge pic which is by Mary Moores.
This Daily Expedition Report is by me and by fellow GTF Chris.
And this Daily Expedition Report is by GTFs Caitlyn and Nikia.
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