Trip #1 Pre-Trip Post

On behalf of our first pair of teachers, this is Matt Krug's pre-trip posting (5th grade at KA Brett School):

When Karl Nordlund, fellow teacher here at the Brett School in Tamworth, asked me if I was interested in taking a trip up to the Obs this winter, I thought YES, count me in.  Now that the trip is set, the paper work is in, I have been busy getting myself and my class prepared.

When I had mapped out the school year, I had not planned on this trip.  So now I have moved forward my weather unit.  We have been taking daily weather observations (temperature, wind speed using a Beaufort Chart, barometric pressure, cloud cover, and cloud type). We have discussed and done experiments with heat rising, water vapor, cloud formation, and wind chill.  We have also viewed some YouTube videos on Mount Washington’s extreme weather.

Karl and I spent part of three afternoons working with Will trying insure that the video connection between the summit and our classrooms was in order.  We plan to have a three-way link between the summit, Karl’s classroom of fourth graders, and my classroom of fifth graders.  It took three tries to work out the audio piece in my room (the mic on my laptop doesn’t work) and the visual in Karl’s room (still foggy but will do). Overall, with the tech help at my school this wasn’t as difficult as I first envisioned.

Now that we are just a couple of days away from the trip I am gathering the necessary gear. Part of my final lesson before going up will be to show the students all the gear I have to bring.  I also plan to show them the Kestrel-  I do wish I had more time to explore this before going up.

The weather has been cold to start this week. Wednesday, our day up could be wet with warmer weather and rain or ice.  Received this email from Brian on Friday:

Just an initial heads up: Wednesday’s weather is looking fairly challenging with high winds and quite a bit of precipitation (likely mixed and messy) throughout the day. We’ll keep you both in the loop well before your trip Wednesday, but just keep in the back of your head the potential for an early, maybe Tuesday, or later, maybe Thursday shift change, or perhaps an earlier or later start on Wednesday. We’ll do our best to get everyone up and down, but we’ll be sure to have some contingencies for you and your classes as well.

So fellow teachers keep this in mind when lining up your sub…

Here's hoping for a great trip with some high winds and memorable weather.

-Matt Krug

Here was the forecast for the first Arctic Wednesday:

Keep posted for Karl & Matt's post-trip report which will be posted in the coming days!