Ronit is the San Diego Zoo’s 2007 Arctic Ambassador. She and other teens from around the world are in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, to partipate in Polar Bears International’s Polar Bear Leadership Camp. Read her previous blog, Connecting from the Tundra to School Kids.

It snowed! Okay, not enough to jump into or go sledding on with the polar bears, but Michael (a fellow ambassador from Australia) was so thrilled at seeing his first snow that he collected it from the corners of the buggy patios and created a snow ball. But that was about it. It is beautiful, though, to see white, fluffy snowflakes drifting to the ground, and catching them on my tongue is pure pleasure.

This morning we again worked on presenting the information from our required reading, Impacts of a Warming Arctic, to specific audiences. My group chose to present the impacts of global climate change on coastal climates to a Parent/Teacher Association (PTA) at a school in the Midwest USA. These mock performances are giving us chances to prepare presentations that we can use when we return home. Our group created a plan for the PTA to host an Eco-Day at the school that would provide environmentally educational activities and information. I am really excited about the many activities we made for this Eco-Day and am planning to bring the plans back to local elementary schools in San Diego. I think I would provide a very effective platform for education in younger children and families.

Unfortunately, the Internet connection went down because of the strong winds and storm on Thursday. It really doesn’t affect our daily business, except that we were scheduled to have a videoconference with a 5th-grade class from Oregon. We couldn’t make the connection even though many people in the Lodge worked through the night in an attempt to fix the link. We didn’t want to disappoint the kids, so we decided to video record our answers to the questions they had sent us, and then we will send the tape to the class. Not quite how we wanted it, but as our wise leader, Mr. Robert Buchanan, said, “Mother Nature always wins!” In the tundra, you must get up and keep going after you fall, no matter what happens, a lesson I will always carry from this trip.

Learning lots from the Tundra and my Arctic family,
Ronit

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