Tag: ANTARCTICA

Our next project was another fun one. Students of all ages had the opportunity to paint to music. We listened to Ralph Vaughn Williams’s “Sinfonia Antarctica,” which he composed for a film on Robert Falcon Scott’s disastrous expedition. I did not tell the students what the music was written for at first, as I wanted them to decide what they thought Vaughn Williams was trying to tell us about his music.

While I was in Antarctica, I had the opportunity to kayak in the Weddell Sea. When I was out kayaking, I took out my Vernier water sensors, and tested the Weddell Sea. One of the measurements I took was the salinity (or saltiness) of the water. With that data, I was able to make my own saltwater that matched the salinity of the water I was in for the students to use when they did some watercolor painting to “Sinfonia Antarctica.”

Students listened to Ralph Vaughn Williams’s piece, and created a painting to match what they heard through his music. Before we listened to the recording, we looked at famous artwork that was influenced by the water – such as Claude Monet’s “Impression: Sunrise,” Katsushika Hokusai’s “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa,” and Georgia O’Keefe’s “Blue Wave Maine,” among others. Students were then inspired to make their own art while listening to “Sinfonia Antarctica.” I was impressed by how many students heard moments that made them think of giant waves, shipwrecks, and other dark moments on that water.

It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed collaborating with our school’s fantastic art teacher in planning the painting portion of the lesson! I hung up every student’s artwork in our hallway so that everyone visiting our school can see the work our students did!

Welcome to 2025! Now that our Christmas concert is in the books, and Christmas break has come and gone, it’s time to get rolling on some of our Antarctic work in the classroom! After our concert was over, we did our explorer photos in my orange parka, and I’ve got pictures of the students in the landscape pictures I took while on my expedition. Now it’s time to dig into the serious work!

The first project we’ve worked on is the study of sea chanteys. Our spring concert is going to be water-themed, and this is the start of the journey. I introduced students to #ShantyTok on TikTok, and we watched a few epic performances. The students then went on a tour of sea chanteys from around the world. We even watched a short clip from “Big Bang Theory,” where Sheldon and Penny were using a sea chantey to complete a task. Students then deduced the purpose of sea chanteys.

Once we figured out the purpose of the sea chantey, students got into groups to create their own sea chantey. They had to write it about an activity that is not enjoyable, goes on too long, or something they have to do often. Once they got done, they performed their sea chantey for the class while wearing VR headsets. I had recorded several 360-degree videos on my expedition, so students were able to perform their sea chanteys ‘at sea in Antarctica.’ Due to most of the students not having experience with VR, I did not have them perform while watching Drake Passage crossing footage!

The littlest students worked as a full class to write ONE sea chantey, and then got to create their own composition using Google Arts Paint With Music (Ocean setting).

The students really enjoyed the unit (more than I thought), and I don’t think it was all because of the virtual reality – they really got into sea chanteys!

When I started planning for how I was going to involve all students in our school in the Antarctic expedition, I talked to the teachers I work with. I was particularly curious as to how to make this impactful and meaningful for our youngest students. They don’t understand the distance to another state, let alone the idea of getting to Antarctica. The wonderful kindergarten teacher in our school suggested having the students guess what penguins sound like. I loved this idea, so I asked all of the students in the elementary grades to record what they thought penguins sounded like, while I made a video of them. Each student got to make their own video. Then, while I’m in Antarctica, I will record penguin sounds.

The students had a blast with this. Some of them made chicken noises, some of them had seen penguins (of a different kind than I will see) at the local zoo, and some of them just made silly sounds.

*Add on after the trip: The best part about this project was that one of the 2nd grade boys made the silliest sound when I was recording his penguin sound. I thought ‘oh, he’s just being silly,’ but his was the sound that most matched what the Adelie Penguins sounded like!

The students LOVED watching their videos and comparing them to the sounds of 4 different species of penguins. We then had the classes try to make the sounds after they heard the recordings. It was a class period full of laughter!

Before I left on my expedition, I asked the students in my classes what they thought Antarctica will look like. I had them draw their work on a piece of copy paper.

After the students drew their ideas, I took their pictures looking like explorers in front of a green screen. I then put the student pictures into their drawings and turned my bulletin board into a collection of their images, as though they were postcards from Antarctica. I put it up right before I left, so students would be able to look at these images the entire time I was on my expedition.

When I come back, the students will take new pictures in front of the green screen wearing my parka, and I will drop them into pictures from my expedition!

Helping out scientists and composing music at the same time? Yes, please! In order to get ready for the Antarctic learning journey the students get to be a part of this year, we participated in the Float Your Boat program. This program allows schools to decorate wooden boats that are stamped with the organization’s website and a tracking number. The boats are deployed on an Arctic ice floe, along with a gps buoy. We are able to track the buoys to see where our boats are. Eventually, the ice floe drifts to warmer water and melts. The boats then end up dispersed in the ocean currents, where they will wash up on shore and citizen scientists turn them in.

Even though my travels will take me to the opposite side of our Earth from these boats, it is a great program for students to learn about ocean currents and ice melt. Additionally, we were able to decorate the boats with music – students composed songs in the key of C (get it….SEA???). I checked to make sure they had the right number of beats in a measure, and used notes that fit that key as a formative assessment from music theory, and they get to spread music throughout the world! They got to decorate the top in whatever manner they wanted!

After our entire school decorated the boats (grades 3-year old kindergarten all the way up to 8th grade), they got mailed off to Washington. They will embark on their journey from there!

While I am gone in Antarctica, I have set up an optional book club for the students in my school. Students will read “Eve of the Emperor Penguins” from the Magic Treehouse series.

The goal is for each student/family to read one chapter per night that I am gone. We’ll take one day off per week, so that students can catch up if they get behind.

The host site for our book club is Facebook, and settings allow me to pre-post a daily message ahead of time that will be released each morning at 8 am. I also posted a calendar of the chapter readings on the main page. There will be discussion questions to get everyone interacting, and then when I come back, students who finished the book will be invited to a Penguin Party to celebrate their work!