As part of our art/cultural program that links art with ongoing cultural work, first, second, and third grade students recently completed a large wall chart, nine feet wide by seven feet high.  The chart shows a current exploration project in Antarctica that involves drilling through a two-mile-thick sheet of ice that has sealed a sub-glacial lake (Lake Ellsworth) from the rest of the biosphere for at least as long as Homo sapiens has walked the Earth.  Scientists hope to find species that have survived below the ice in isolation from all other life on Earth for 400,000 to two million years.

 Our students drew forty-two panels of ice, a long drill pipe, Lake Ellsworth, over 200 imaginary microbes that could be found in the lake, labels, and a title for the chart.  The students stood on a ladder to assemble the entire chart on the wall.  The students began to understand the great depth of ice and what it might be like to explore the unknown.  They also had the opportunity to stretch their imaginations as they drew microbes never before seen!

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 We sent photographs of the students’ work to Professor Martin J. Siegert, the University of Edinburgh, UK, who is heading the entire exploration team.  We received an immediate response from Professor Seigert who wrote, “I was delighted to learn that you all find our project so exciting! You must be really proud of the children, as their art looks fabulous. Many congratulations on that.  Please do give your class my appreciation and good wishes.” He also asked if they could display the students’ work on the British Antarctic Survey website. As you can imagine the students are very excited by all of this.