Touch Tank!

Wow! I took a tour of the big science lab they have here called the Crary Lab. It has an aquarium with a touch tank filled with fish and other things that live under the very cold ocean water here in Antarctica.

 


Look at all the different things living in this tank!

This thing that looks like a big bug is called a "sea lice!"

 I was scared at first to put my hand in the touch tank!

But then I got braver! (Look at the guy in the red sweatshirt. He thinking "No way. Not me!)














I finally got enough courage to pick up the scariest thing in the tank: the sea lice!

Then I picked up a Starfish.

















Then a Sea Spider! Cool!

Really, Really Windy

Here's a picture of me in a normal Antarctic storm. I'm having a hard time standing in the wind. It was worse than this for most of the day. It was so windy that you couldn't even see outside; all you could see was white because of all the snow that was blowing around. When it's really windy, it's also really cold! I was outside just for a second to take this picture and then I had to run back inside.

Artists in Antarctica

There are many people who come to Antarctica who are creative. On top is a metal sculture of a whale or fish. It took somebody a long time to make this, but now everybody who walks by it thinks it's neat and it makes them smile. It is very big. The picture on the bottom is of a metal skier on a hill. When I first saw it I thought it was a real person skiing down the hill! 

It's Summer Down Here

I know it sounds funny, but down here in Antarctica it's summer. The seasons down here are the opposite of ours in Montgomery, NY. Summer is still pretty cold down here!

Another really funny thing is that during summer it never gets dark outside. It's light outside even during the middle of the night. Isn't that amazing? This picture shows what it looks like in the middle of the night when everyone is sleeping.  

Weddell Seals

These are Weddell Seals that I took pictures of over the last few days. They're kind of cute. We're not allowed to get too close to them, mostly because walking on the ice near them is dangerous. They came up through the ice because it was thin, so that makes it dangerous to walk on. In some of the pictures you can see where they made holes in the ice. They mostly just lay around when they're out of the water. In the water they move very fast and always look like they're having fun.

Ivan the Terra Bus

The biggest bus in Antarctica is so big that he has a name: Ivan the Terra Bus. Most people who come to Antarctica get off the plane after it lands and get on to Ivan for a long ride into McMurdo Station.

Ivan weighs 30 tons and holds at least 56 people. Some say as many as 80 people can fit in him. He has big soft tires that help him drive over the ice and snow. He moves pretty slowly. He's kind of loud, but nice and warm on the inside.

Weather Balloons

 

Balloons aren't just for parties. Some are used for science to measure the weather. A weather observer for the National Science Foundation named Mark let me help him blow up a big weather balloon that had a very special computer tied to it. I got to be the one who released it into the air. It's so big that it will almost go up into space. It will go 60,000 feet into the atmosphere. That's more than 11 miles. As it goes up it measures the temperature and other things so he can tell what's happening and what's going to happen with the weather. This is important because planes can't fly when the weather gets bad down here in Antarctica.

Mark also let me write on the balloon, so I wrote a message to Kelsie and her mom and her baby sister. It was a lot of fun.

He said I could do it again. I mentioned that you, Mrs. Van Pelt's Kindergarten class, might want a special message written on a scientific weather balloon that will be released into the sky from Antarctica. He liked that idea. So, if your class would like, let me know what special message to write on the next balloon I get to let go of and I will take a picture of it for you and put it here for you to see. Your message will go so far up in the sky that it will almost be in space!

                                                          

Thanks!

We have firefighters here too!

Hi class! Congratulations on your fire assembly. Kelsie told me all about it over the phone and even sang the song you sang to the firefighters. I liked it very much. I told her that we have firefighters down here at McMurdo Station in Antarctica too and that they have 3 big YELLOW fire trucks. She thought that was funny. So here are some pictures of our fire trucks and our station.    

An Ice Runway or Skiway

 
Most planes land on long, flat, hard runways, but planes in Antarctica have to land on ice on the frozen ocean. It's so cold down here that most of the ocean is frozen all year long! Great big planes land right on the ice. It's called an ice runway or skiway. Some of the planes still use wheels to land, but some even have skis instead of wheels. These are pictures of a really big Air Force jet called a C-17 landing and taking off from the ice runway here at McMurdo Station.

Where is Antarctica and what is it like?

Antarctica is on the bottom of the globe. It is a continent. The South Pole is right in the middle of it and it is one of the coldest places on earth. In fact, Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, driest place on earth. But it also is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Hi Mrs. Van Pelt's Kindergarten class! I'm Kelsie's dad and I'm excited to show some of the amazing things I've seen down here. I hope you like learning about Antarctica. I'll try to send you some things in the mail too, but they might take a long time to get there since I'm so far away.