Teachers Grounded In White Out Antarctica
The Fuchs Foundation teachers due to return home from Antarctica for a Christmas reunion with their families are being delayed by severe weather conditions. Having been snowed in at several places in the Antarctic, Amy, Ruth, Ian and Phil are now waiting for a flight out of Patriot Hills, the first leg of their long journey home, but with no visibility and a snow covered runway there will be no movement until the weekend at the earliest. This makes their touch down at Heathrow on 20 December unlikely, but all hopeful that they will be back by Christmas Eve.
Following a gruelling time man hauling their sledges back to Patriot Hills they are now having to use their ingenuity to occupy the long hours in a camp besieged by snow and high winds. ‘We are wondering how long it will be before we start to go mad. The peak of the storm is expected to arrive on Friday. If this isn’t the peak I don’t know what the peak is going to be like’ they wrote.
They have completed their science projects on and around the Union Glacier and return with exciting new information about lichens found in places not been recorded before. Their findings and experiences will be used to compile teaching materials available for anyone logging on to www.fuchsfoundation.org and www.spri.cam.ac.uk, the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge.
The expedition celebrates the 50th anniversary of the successful completion of the crossing by the Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expedition lead by Sir Vivian Fuchs. Teachers TV are filming it for a Spring 2008 series of programmes, currently under the working title of Antarctica: Sub Zero Teacher.
ENDS
Pictures available
The teachers will be available for interviews after Christmas.
For more information about the Fuchs Foundation, please contact Ann Fuchs on 01455 202370 / 07774903349 ann@fuchsfoundation.org.
To find out more about Teachers TV, please contact Isobel Bradshaw or Natalie Orringe on 020 7400 4480/ ttv@hanovercomms.com
Page last modified: 27th Apr 2009 - 11:26:40