The Teaching on Ice blog has now been archived. Teaching materials and resources will be transferred to the Resources section of the site.

Many thanks to Phil Avery for sharing his experiences of Antarctica with teachingexpertise.

171,000 air miles
13 assemblies
100% increase in the numbers of students doing the School Expedition
-60 deg C was the coldest temperature I experienced
100s of questions asked by students
1 cold injury within our group
37kg of rubbish created by the team during our 5 weeks on the ice
2500 students spoken to personally by me about the expedition
2009: the next group of teachers will fly to the Arctic with the Fuchs Foundation
4000 calories a day
32.5km of sledge hauling in 17 hours to beat the bad weather back to camp
£13,500 of costs to me personally

Increasingly the expedition is turning from experiences into stories and statistics. Recently I've given after dinner speaches, presentations and inset talks to local community groups, to my students, in other schools and at the Scott Polar Research Institiute publicising what we did, the teaching materials that we are working on and that there is a Teachers TV programme soon to be aired. Universally the talks have been positively received, with all agreeing that the expedition has already achieved its aim of inspiring students. The praise is a huge relief to those of us who have put in so much time and effort. My work as a member of the Fuchs Foundation Antarctic Expedition 2007 will be over once I've published my teaching materials (deadline of the 20th April), but the work of the Fuchs Foundation will continue through the group of teachers who are crossing Greenland in the summer of 2009.

Keep an eye on this blog for the teaching materials and on the Fuchs Foundation website for wider information about our expedition and the upcoming Arctic journey. And keep the questions coming!

It's very rarely that I feel overwhelmed, but now is one of those times. A couple of weeks ago all was well, lots on, but I was on top of it and making deadlines the day before. Now I'm just fire-fighting non stop and today I finished my 85 Y9 reports with only 5 seconds to spare before the 4pm report shut down!

The to-do list is never-ending and growing: the letter for the Ghana link, assessments for Y7, feedback on last weeks inset workshops, assemblies on Antarctica, G&T meeting, T&L meeting, Fast Track meeting, Ski Trip meeting, meeting with the Head re training courses, running club, Duke of Edinburgh, True Adventure trip to Borneo etc. etc.  Normally all these balls are kept in the air, but currently they're all falling fast towards me. Oh and there's lesson planning and teaching to do.

Then on top of the job there's the Antarctica project: talk at a local school tomorrow before school, talk at the Scott Polar Research Institute on the 1st March (all welcome), fancy dinner at St John's College, Cambridge, ongoing project analysis and teaching material creation. If this is to be an educational expedition, rather than simply an expedition, then this is the most important part. I'll add it on to the to-do list.

Just four more days to dodge falling balls and I'm on the bus to teh ski slopes Italy with 68 children ... I can hold on!