Just to prove that we have sensitive, cultured people involved in this voyage of scientific discovery, we have launched a place where expeditioners, students and all Antarctic enthusiasts can share their reflective and moving thoughts about Antarctica with each other.

If you are reading this and are feeling inspired, please send your poem to askipy@edna.edu.au and they will forward it to us to put on the website.

Today's (15th October) poems are written by Luke Schlenner and Amy Castledine both are in Grade 2, at Rosetta Primary, Tasmania.

Krill

Crunchy krill

Little krill

On the ocean floor

Eating those little plankton

With those thin hairs

by Luke Schlenner  

Antarctica

Antarctic animals

Noisy animals

Tough seals

Approaching animals

Rough weather

Cold Ocean

Tiny krill and babies

Icy land

Catch food for young to eat

A lot of ice and snow

by Amy Castledine

Antarctica

Animals

Natural animals

Tea is coming

Anchor jamming into the ocean floor

Running away from the predators

Cold

Tummies empty

In the ocean floor

Cold? No freezing

and last but least

Antarctic animals

Lauren Gilmour

Krill

Krill scattering across the ocean floor

Right under the ocean surface

In their little exoskeleton

Low in the ocean

Lucky little Krill

Mitchell Norman

Leopard Seals

Leopard Seals

Leaping through the water

Eating as they go

The ocean obeys them

Streaking through the waves

Leopard seals go crunching

Penguins for their tea(yum)

The ice so blue

Leopard seals coming through

Leopard seals are the best

William Pockett

On the Shoulders of Giants

Physics is often thought to be

A little bit of a mystery

Dealing with motion, sound and light

Energy, magnetism and the sky at night

Isaac Newton and gravity

Albert Einstein – special relativity

Kepler, Copernicus, on the list goes

Tycho Brahe and his golden nose!

Marie Curie and radioactivity

James Clerk Maxwell – magnets, electricity

Kelvin, Joule, Ampere and Faraday

All with their equations and rules to obey

All these giants on whose shoulders we stand

Wouldn’t it be great to shake their hands?

What would they think of our world today?

What would they talk about, what would they say?

All that is left for us do

Is continue their work and more knowledge accrue

Thinking, experimenting, discovering new things

Wondering what the future will bring!

Using the past as our inspiration,

Future discoveries are our motivation

As physicists we enjoy what we do

Unearthing nature’s secrets just for you!

Anonymous Physicist

Diamond dust

A beautiful sight

Gliffering, refracting

Antarctic Light

Crystals floating

In the air

Like tiny gemstones

They're everywhere!

Nancy Fergusson

Blustering

Lacerating

Icy

Zig

Zags

Advance

Renders

Danger

Anonymous Expeditioner

Aurora Australis

Lighting up the sky

Strange green glow of particles

Awe-inspired we stare

Anonymous Expeditioner

Island of Humanity

Island of humanity

No one for miles

Threatens your sanity

Ice stacked in piles

Chopper extends a finger

Stretching out the line

At arms reach don’t linger

Sky might claim as mine

Ship is warm and homely

Tea or coffee friends?

In contrast to the sea so lonely

With ice that never ends

A place of beauty, a place of fear

And yet we are secure

The skills of those with us here

Our safety they procure

Dave Tonna (DVL)

The Arctic is an ocean

that plays at being land;

each little ridge and wrinkle stands,

as on a map, as larger than itself.

Here melt-pond solid seas

form over a liquid mantle –

geology’s reversed! Continental

plates of ice collide to form

pressure-ridge mountain chains.

The illusion stands,

solid, almost, as real land;

until the POLARSTERN comes crashing through,

to remind the Arctic Ocean

that for all its grandeur,

it’s really only water,

sailed by ships and sailors (even scientists).

But then comes the Arctic winter

and by degrees, we’re slowly squeezed

south; and the ocean closes up

behind us, like a zipper.

Andrew Feld (2001)

Ice Ice Station (to the tune of Ice, Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice)

Yo Stop, Collaborative then Publish

SIPEX back with a brand new adventure,

If there is a problem, yo Tony'll solve it

Just call the bridge cos the plan is evolvin'

ICE ICE STATION

WHERE IS THE ICE ICE STATION?

Team Oceanography

Antarctica

Ice is so shiny

Shinier than the sun

Cold and solid

Just like a rock

Sweeping through the air

And into the ocean.

Corey Schubert

Alex the parrot is so lucky,

His friends all have tea and coffee.

It would be nice if I could have some rice I'm definitely not going to have any ice!

Polar Knutsen is always hungry

Instead of bread and healthy munchies

He wants black and white penguins!

Phillip Le

Penguins

Energetic

Next winter goes by

Getting colder by the minute

Under the sea they go

In the water they get their food

No wonder they are so cute!

Aurora Australis

There’s a ship and it moves in the endless waves,

As the ceaseless wind goes by

The sea birds glide on the slope of the swell

Beneath an unconscious sky

For day after day it is ever the same,

Just a chart with crosses that creep

To give substance to faith that the ship still moves

Over wastes of boundless deep.

There’s a ship, and it plunges through darkness and wind,

Tossed by the ocean's might.

The spray from the bows is snatched by the wind

And carried at once from sight.

The white of the foam is seen in the glow

Of the searchlight's feeble light

And it shows the ghosts of titans that pass

Unseen in the vast polar night.

There’s a ship, and it glides through a crust of grey,

And it’s cold, so cold outside.

There are millions of flowers of salt on the ice,

And the ship has an effortless ride.

But soon there is ice that has grown for months,

It’s rafted, and covered with snow,

A miniature world of hills and plains

Of ice, a city-sized floe.

There’s a ship and it sits in the fields of ice,

While the wind blows a torrent of white.

For hour upon hour the snow rushes past

And the sun gives a feeble light

And the ship must wait for the winds to ease

For the snowflakes to cease their fall

So the sons and daughters of mountainous bergs

Can be seen and avoided once more.

These waters are rich in life that has learned

To live where the energy’s poor

Where the sun is a memory for much of the year

And the temperature falls to the floor.

We're not of that life and we only survive

By the grace of the millions of years

That it took to create the fossil fuel

That our ship must consume while it's here.

So the ship and its people will soon be gone

From the seas of ice and snow.

The life that’s at home in this cruel clime

Won’t even blink when we go.

The ship will go on and carry us home

We’ll try to keep memories clear.

Of the life that maintains its tenuous grasp

At the edge of the world down here.

Lance Cowled

Scott was hot in the head

He didn't have a warm bed

He did not choose the best

So his group ran out of zest

And he froze in the night during a blizzard.

Joshua Sim

The Great Ice Making Machine.

This is where the wind blows.

where fortresses of ice tower in the water.

where petrels sail the waves.

where little fellas in tuxedos slide on the ice.

where frozen pancakes float endlessly.

This is where the wind blows.

where we found our sea legs.

where we walked on water.

where we had a Kodak frenzy,

once a day.

where we found what wind chill means,

for real.

This is where the wind blows.

All this in our orange envelope of safety.

Mats Granskog

I wave goodbye full of emotion,

To sail across the Southern Ocean.

What lies ahead will fill one with awe

Those left behind I know I'll long for.

Snow plus ice of many shapes and hues

Air so cold you shiver in your shoes.

Little black and white people toddle by

Snow and Antarctic petrels swoop and fly.

Scientists and crew all become friends

All hoping the voyage never ends.

Jane Higgins

Penguins look so good to eat,

I think I deserve one as a treat.

I don't understand why I'm not allowed -

I could probably get away with it if there wasn't such a crowd!

Polar Knutsen

Oceanographer;

Deep is the dream that you sleep,

Oceanographer.

Dr Guy Williams

Inconvenient

Chopping

Experiments

Cannot

Overcome

Relative

Excitement

Anonymous Ice Corer