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Antarctic Flag Program

Vicarious meteorite search on the Antarctic Blue Ice for K-12 students worldwide – the interactive program used an “avatar” flag created by the students at each school to travel with the scientists as they explored the Antarctic continent.

BLUE ICE INTERNATIONAL began with the modest goal of bringing students the experience of exploring Antarctica

Participating schools created flags that were taken by scientists into the field on expeditions to Antarctica.  The students at each school designed and hand crafted their own distinct flag that acted as their personal “avatar” and ensured that the students would be engaged in the vicarious journey.

These flags were then taken  to Antarctica by research scientists on expeditions that were participating in ANSMET ( Antarctic Search for Meteorites).  Photos, video and written journals depicting daily observations from the scientists provided engaging content as the flags traveled  along. When the expeditions returned from Antarctica each flag was ceremoniously returned to it’s home school  and the scientist would present his experiences personally to the students at an assembly.

Scope

  • Spanned 10 Years
  • 5 Countries
  • 100 Schools
  • 30,000 Students

Technology

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A Flag’s Journey

An adventure in Antarctica and then back to the classroom

The student’s at Yamanouchi Elementary School in Japan took an educational journey to Antarctica by way of their “avatar” flag.  The whole school (Grades 1 – 6) took part in the flags creation and then followed along on their flag’s adventure and on to it’s triumphant return.

From Antarctica…

…to Manhattan, Kansas Elementary School!

Spanning 10 years – 30,000 students from 100 schools in five countries participated in the virtual adventure.

Schools from Finland Japan, Poland, Spain, and the United states (Including the Navajo Nation and the Jemez Pueblo) participated in the original flag program.