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Jodie King has been waiting her whole life to see Antarctic penguins with her own eyes, and now she has a chance to see them in their natural habitat.

The Nipissing University geography student will be living out her frigid dream of a lifetime in February. Marking International Polar Year, King will join 69 other students from across the globe on a month-long voyage with the organization Students on Ice.

While in Antarctica, students will conduct research on glacial shifts, ecology, the environmental impact of tourism on the continent and the effects of global warming.

Since she was a child, King has had a fascination with cold regions. What started as a study of penguins in elementary school has grown into her thesis on Antarctic climate change. While on the trip, King will collect data she will use in her undergraduate thesis at Nipissing.

She will be using global positioning systems to measure the edge of the ice shelves, then compare it to satellite images from years past to estimate how much has been lost. She will also take ice core samples and compare the amount of ice buildup each year to temperature variations.

"Most students don’t get to do this for their undergraduate," she said.

To prepare for her trip, King has been reading up on both sides of the climate change debate and preparing herself for her research findings.

"I’m trying to be optimistic but I don’t want to assume it is climate change,” she said. “It may just be a natural cycle in the ice formation or it may be global warming."

King is excited for the opportunity to gain research experience for grad school but she is also looking forward to meeting other students who share her passion for climate change — and penguins.

The students will spend most of the month-long trip on board a refurbished expedition ship USHUAIA, which was originally built for the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They will also be followed by a media crew, and will be posting blogs throughout the expedition.

King also hopes to attract more sponsors for her expedition, which costs more than $12,000 for each student.

King hopes to share her research and experiences with the community by giving presentations when she returns.

"I want to bring back a better idea of sustainability for our Earth," she said.

Original source taken from: http://www.nugget.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1366383

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