preparation

Guest

Hi Amy,
I saw the article in the newspaper last week about your trip. Congratulations! I was wondering what types of things you are doing to prepare for your trip to Siberia?

Thanks-
Meghan Fitzpatrick

Guest

Hi Meghan,
I'm doing lots to prepare for the trip. Today I am heading to Burlington to get some Hepatitis shots and pick up some prescriptions just in case I get sick while I am there (I certainly hope I don't).

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an Arctic Survival class in Denver, Colorado which was really neat--we learned how to build shelters, protect ourselves in all sorts of situations and learned more about the environment in which I will be living for three weeks.

I also have been communicating a lot with Max, the principal investigator of this trip. He came to my school to meet the students a few weeks ago, and I will hopefully be heading down there next week sometime to see where he works. We have been talking about the best ways to bring this opportunity back into the classroom. Max really believes in doing as much outreach as possible, so he has been great to work with. Hopefully, studnets at Salisbury will be conducting water samples from the Otter Creek while we are sampling the Lena River so that we can compare these two waters from opposite sides of the world!

Finally, I am beginning to put together the clothes that I will need to bring. I will be issued some of the clothing and supplies that I will need from a place called VECO polar research--so I won't have to go out and buy tons of new things. Plus, being from Vermont where we have relatively cold winters (especially this year), I have a lot of the clothing (long underwear, fleece clothing, etc.) that I will need. As Max told me, I need to plan on having lots of layers since no one knows what the weather might be like.

Thanks for the question--keep them coming!!!

Amy