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Photo by Courteney Bull

Antarctic Centre

Nicole Walters —

On Wednesday 13th March 2019, Casebrook took eight lucky students who are into science to the Antarctic Centre for a Nano Girl podcast.

At 10:30am we departed Casebrook and started our journey to the Antarctic Centre. Our session started at 10:45am and we went upstairs to the Sir Edmund Hillary room where we met Nanogirl and Gary Wilson. First we had to do the introduction and make weird sound effects because we were in Nanogirl’s spacecraft. Gary then started a science experiment for a bit later and it was making a complete racket! 

Then we headed downstairs into the snow room and we had to put on special gear. It was so cold in there that I thought my lips and fingers were going to turn blue! When the storm started the temperature dropped to -8 celsius and it surprisingly wasn't that cold until the high crisp winds started. The winds were -18 celsius! Then we found out that Antarctica is actually a desert? Did you know that? 

After that we went back up to the room and finished off the podcast and finished a science experiment. The science experiment was putting water bottles from the supermarket into ice and then pouring pink salt all over it. It made the ice frizzell and then it melted. After an hour you pull the drink bottle up out of the ice, bang it on the table and open the lid and the ice should rise to the top. Ours didn't work because we didn't have it in the ice for an hour, but we had to pretend it worked for the podcast. 

Then we all asked if we could see the penguins so went to the penguin enclosure. We found out that tags on the left arm meant that the penguin was a boy, and vice versa. Then we went back to school at around 12:50pm and continued our day back at school.