Check out this article from Tessa Cubitt!

From the 15th till the 25th of January, I was lucky enough to be 1 of 10 New Zealand girls to attend the first-ever Girls on Ice New Zealand expedition. I spent 10 spectacular days with some amazing people. With 7 days being on Mt Ruapehu. The others in Wellington.

The first day we all arrived at Wellington and got to Victoria University where we were allocated our gear and met everyone. The next day we travelled 6 hours to Whakapapa Ski field (Mt Ruapehu) where we walked up the mountain to the hut. On these days we explored the mountain and whilst we did this we learnt about the science side of things to do with the mountain and volcano. We also did some art of things around us like significant rock features or peaks on the mountain. We also used small amounts of plant life to create cyanotypes. We even got half an hour away from the crater! Unfortunately, the weather turned and we had to walk back down to the hut.

Once our 7 days on the mountain had finished we drove back to Victoria University and unpacked our gear then chilled out. The next morning we started on our research project where my group consisted of myself, Xanthe, Hope, and 2 instructors Alanna and Mel. We did our project on the Whakapapanui stream on Mt Ruapehu. Our question was, Does the altitude affect the temperature and biodiversity in/around the stream? We measured our results at 3 different points on the mountain starting high and then one in the middle and one at the lower part of the steam. We found out that the lower the altitude the higher the biodiversity which proved our hypothesis correct. Then we had to present our findings to our family and friends later that day.

The next day was our final day together where we got a brief tour around the University. Then some of us had to go to the airport. I didn’t think that I would be sad to leave as I had made some lifelong friends but I still keep in contact with them. I would highly recommend this trip to all 15-16-year-olds as it teaches you a lot about yourself and you make connections with people so fast.