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.
Antarctic Flag Program
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.
