That is something I have asked myself since I left school. I struggled through education, spending time in classes that never interested me, finding the subjects dull and boring because it was what had to be done. I dreamt of being outdoors, exploring. My boyhood hero was another Plymouth born explorer, Captain Robert Falcon Scott; I wanted so badly to go on an expedition, to see remote parts of the world. The classroom was something that I associated with being grounded, stuck in a room until I could escape again.

As I got older, my passion for the outdoors grew along with my passion for travel; suddenly I found an eagerness to learn, to experience and see everything I could. To be able to travel to a location enables you to fully appreciate the beauty of your surroundings. Whether it concerns historical significance, the influence of human kind or wildlife, in the natural world there is always something to learn and to experience. Being able to use your senses stimulates the mind.

As my journeys took me to more remote locations, so too have technologies advanced, making it possible to gain satellite phone coverage in the most remote areas of the Arctic. This enables explorers and researchers to send back daily updates of their findings and experiences; it also enables children to send questions directly to those satellite phones. Using a PDA or small laptop, those questions can be answered with stunning photographs, inspirational video footage and gripping stories from the trail. Suddenly these sights, sounds and experiences can be delivered straight to the classroom and other learning environments, making them inspiring places in which to learn. Credible eye witness accounts of the world around us can be accessed in real time; a text book is only as current as the day it was printed.

My greatest achievement while using this ability to report back from the Arctic included a successful crossing from Canada to the Geographic North Pole in early 2010. The Geographic North Pole expedition saw my two team mates and I ski and snow-shoe (and sometimes swim!) over 500 miles from Cape Discovery to the Geographic North Pole in just 51 days, collecting valuable scientific data for Plymouth University. Since returning from the North Pole I have taken my experiences into over 250 schools and the enthusiasm I am greeted with from children is just as rewarding an experience as reaching the Pole itself. This has made me realise something else about myself; it is as an educator, rather than an explorer, that I would like to be remembered.

I am not unique in employing this technology to reach a global school-aged audience – so why, I asked myself, wasn’t there a central platform that brings together all of these projects on one website so that children can learn about the world at the click of a button? I decided to answer that question by launching just such an e-learning platform – ETE Teachers, under the umbrella of a Community Interest Company called Education Through Expeditions (ETE).

Education Through Expeditions also provides inspirational talks and educational outreach days through which the experiences of myself and other members of the ETE Team can be shared with others to motivate listeners to raise their own aspirations.

Today I would like to offer you a special insight into the work of Education Through Expeditions through providing you with some of the cross-curricula educational resources that are crucial to our work in schools for free!

Here is one of our four exercise books that your students can work through and learn about the wildlife in the Polar Regions, we also have three other exercise books: Expedition Life, Inuit Culture and Environmental Sciences. Once all four exercise books have been completed by a student, they will then earn themselves a certificate for passing through our Polar Academy.

Download here: Wildlife Exercise Book

This is a video of my presentation about my journey to the Geographic North Pole.

This is the inspirational video of my journey to the Geographic North Pole.

This is a video explaining how to use our ETETeachers site and the features that could be available to you and your students.

Download this document which explains in further detail how you can have an ETE Team member to come into your school and provide your students with a mixture of different activities as part of an interactive fun day!

Download here: ETETalk – Outreach Team + Polar Activity Breakdown

Education Through Expedition’s Latest project has officially launched.

“We saw a paradise in snowscapes and heard music in the wind, for we were young”

Sir Wally Herbert

British Polar Explorers plan the coldest and most remote Diamond Jubilee tea party. While the rest of Britain is hanging up the bunting at home, an intrepid British team will be waving flags and eating cake up the highest point of queen Elizabeth Islands in Northern Canada, just 500 miles short of the north pole.

The historic Arctic Jubilee Expedition aims to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II by visiting the highest point on the Queen Elizabeth Islands, renamed by Canada on the coronation of HM the Queen in 1952. Barbeau Peak has only been summited 8 times throughout history and is the highest point within the British Empire Range as well as the Arctic Cordillera. More people have summited Everest than Barbeau Peak, outlining the remoteness and the momentous impact of the project.

Central to the ascent of Barbeau peak, and as part of a legacy to the expedition, is our education and outreach programme. Through the linking of Inuit and UK schools via our interactive IT learning platform, a sense of global citizenship will be fostered. Our interactive discussion boards will enable students from both cultures to interact and discuss questions relating to cultural identity, the Arctic environment and issues of climate change and sustainability.

This education and outreach campaign is an extension to the work of Education Through Expeditions (a social enterprise organisation) which has already completed over 350 school visits and workshops. Workshop activities have led to the development of a comprehensive syllabus of polar activities which have been established through strong teacher and school partnerships. We aim to continue this by presenting to over 10,000 students this year. Through our continued educational outreach work and associated increased polar awareness, we aim to leave a fitting legacy not only to this expedition, but also to that of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

This project will depart in the middle of May 2012.

For more information on this project please see: www.etelive.org/arcticjubilee

To celebrate the quest of Captain Scott and his team a century ago, SWGfL are delighted to announce a brilliant writing competition in collaboration with ETE: Education Through Expeditions!

100 years ago, Captain Robert Falcon Scott led a team on an incredible adventure – to reach the South Pole, one of the last unexplored places on earth, at that time. They walked an incredible 800 miles, through fierce blizzards and ice, to reach their goal (on a map, plan a walk from Exeter right through to the other side of Germany!).

Sadly, Scott and his colleagues never returned. Their supply of food dwindled, terrible weather set in, frostbite, hunger and exhaustion all took their toll on the brave explorers.

A century later, Captain Scott is celebrated for being a pioneer, who helped map an unfamiliar landscape, record vital information on weather patterns and help future exploration teams understand such extreme environments.

Antony Jinman, polar explorer and founder of ETE, is helping us to launch an exciting writing competition, aimed at helping pupils understand the experiences of those men 100 years ago, as well as to look to the future of exploration and how it can help us look after our planet. So, what do you have to do?

“Write a Letter to Captain Scott”

SWGfL, alongside ETE, are asking you to use your creative skills. To celebrate the centenary of Captain Scott’s journey to the South Pole, we are giving away some brilliant prizes to pupils who show creativity, imagination and originality:

If you could write a letter to one of our history’s heroes (Captain Scott), what would you say? What do you think of his adventures? What questions would you ask? What is your opinion of how our world is changing?

The competition is open to pupils of all age ranges and kicks off Tuesday 21st February, and the closing date is Friday March 30th.

The best entry will win a fantastic school visit from Antony and the ETE Team, along with the incredible polar equipment that he takes with him on his own Polar adventures!

So, how do you enter?

Send your letter to Sherwell Centre, University of Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA OR you can send a letter as an email to this address competition@etehome.org.

When you send your entry, please tell us your full name, age and school (by doing this, you are agreeing for us to use this on our website, so we can show your great thinking!)

Download PDF of this competition: Writing-Competition.

Competition Terms and Conditions
For your chance to win A Letter to Scott Competition, send your letter to Sherwell Centre University of Plymouth Devon. PL4 8AA or email your letter to competition@etehome.org.

Competition entries must be received on or before Noon Friday 30th March 2012.

Judging will take place during week beginning April 2nd 2012. The judging panel will consist of representatives from SWGfL and members of ETE.

There will be 1 winner, receiving a visit from Antony Jinman and the ETE Team, to their school.

The winning entry will be contacted by telephone on 16th April 2012 and announced online at www.etehome.org and www.swgfl.org.uk

The winning entry will be the entry which provides, in the opinion of the judges, the most original, creative and thoughtful letter, which is supported by some research of Scott’s journey.

Winners will be determined at the judges’ absolute discretion and no correspondence will be entered into.

This competition is only open to pupils attending schools in the South West of England.

SWGfL will do its best to ensure all entries are looked after but cannot be responsible for any lost or damaged entries.

By entering this competition, the individual gives consent for his/her name and school name to be published on www.swgfl.org.uk and www.etehome.org

As the competition winner will have their letter published on websites, we need to ensure that we have the copyright to do this. The following paragraph refers to this aspect:

For good and valuable consideration (the receipt and sufficiency of which you acknowledge) you hereby give to SWGfL and its sub contractors all necessary consents and irrevocably and absolutely grant and assign all rights necessary for the reproduction, transmission and exploitation of the recording of my competition entry without time limit throughout the world by all means, formats and media (whether now known or hereafter invented) without liability or acknowledgement to me and I hereby confirm that all moral rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or otherwise have been waived. I also confirm that SWGfL and its sub contractors shall be entitled to cut, edit, copy, adapt and exploit my contribution as SWGfL in its sole discretion deem fit and SWGfL shall not be obliged to include all or any of the same in any programme.

The Polar Course is structured to combine both theory and practical training, culminating in an exciting arctic expedition. With years of practical experience travelling over glaciers, ice caps and sea ice, Antony has a wealth of technical knowledge and experience to be passed on. Using first-hand knowledge, the theory covers the essential requirements for safe polar travel, presented through a series of interactive lectures, presentations and discussions, photographs and videos.

The same course was recently featured in the Telegraph newspaper as Antony lead the training for the International Scott Centenary Expedition.

For more videos from previous expeditions, please visit the “Films” section of the website. Hope you enjoy them :0)

This Christmas at Education Through Expeditions we are raising funds with the launch of our Polar Pudding. Due to popular demand our Polar Pudding is back for the 3rd year running.

All the profits go towards Education Through Expeditions and our continual work developing our school outreach activities and visits. If you work for a company which would like to make this a campaign, a member of a group or society, a teacher at a school, or would just love to buy a single pudding for Christmas, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Please do drop me an email at explore@antonyjinman.com

We’ve got something a lot tastier than the usual festive raffle ticket. We’ve got The Ultimate Plum Pudding – one of the finest Christmas puddings you can buy. It has been endorsed by the BBC Good Food Magazine and by Chef Magazine as being as good as the best home made and has won a food ‘Oscar’ – a gold award at the Great Taste Awards.

The pudding is made by a small craft manufacturer in Cumbria using the finest locally sourced ingredients and is absolutely gorgeous. The vine fruits are soaked overnight in generous quantities of brandy and dry sherry whilst fresh breadcrumbs and grated carrot help give the pudding a lighter texture. Ingredients are top quality and much more varied than usual – almonds, walnuts, stem ginger, apricots, cherries as well as the best, juicily alcoholic, raisins and sultanas. We asked why there are no currants and were told – none of us like currants!

It’s not steamed until its black, caramelised and bitter – it’s light, sweet and aromatic and you can taste a wealth of ingredients in every bite. Most people have no idea that Christmas pudding can be this good and lots of people enjoy it who ‘don’t like Christmas pudding’.

The proof as they say……. (a first-hand experience in an email the company received):

“I really wanted to contact the company to say thank-you for making such a wonderful Christmas pudding. Our daughter attends St Johns Special School in Bedford. We bought one of your Christmas puddings last year but not being a great lover of Christmas pudding it remained uneaten until summer. We decided we better eat it rather than let it go to waste! Well this year I have bought enough for Christmas and beyond because it is the best pudding I have ever tasted. We had it with mascarpone and it was wonderful! Thank you. Ruth Vanner.”

Our Polar Pudding is not available in supermarkets (the company is too small for that) but it is available through Education Through Expeditions. We have had the pudding attractively labelled especially for us to incorporate our logo. Each order for a 1lb pudding (serves 4) costs £5.75 and raises at least £2.00 for us. (We get bigger discounts the more you order). A 2lb (serves costs £9.95 and raises at least £3.50. Ordering direct from the manufacturer allows a good profit for us within a price which is competitive with the premium retail puddings.
It’s a really great pudding – a true highlight for the most loved meal of the year. We’re proud to offer it and know that your family and friends will love it (including the vegetarians). It’s so easy to order from us AND it raises money for ETE. It has to be worthwhile.

Fill in the order form and send it back now, see attached pdf :O)
ETE Polar Pudding Launch 2011

Ingredients: vine fruits(raisins, sultanas)(27%), free range egg, dark sugar, carrot, fresh breadcrumbs(wheat flour, water, yeast, vegetable oil, salt, spirit vinegar, soya),apple(6%), flour, mixed peel(4%), dates(3%), brandy(2.5%), sherry(2.5%), cherries (natural colour)(2.5%), stem ginger(2.5%), unhydrogenated palm oil*, all vegetable margarine (unhydrogenated), almonds(1%), walnuts(1%), unsulphured apricots(1%), golden syrup, spices, salt, preservative – potassium sorbate. Allergens: nuts, wheat, egg, soya.
May also contain mustard.

*from a supplier committed to sustainable production.

Can we also tempt you to a jar of the Ultimate Brandy Butter? Maximum brandy – any more and it splits! Good unsalted butter of a velvety texture with just a little crunch. Fantastic but problematical – it disappears straight from the jar! £2.25 per 190g. Ingredients: unsalted butter, sugar, brandy, nutmeg.

Antony Jinman and the Education Through Expeditions team welcome you back to school and are available for school assemblies, “Polar Fun Day” activity days and workshops.

Please do give us a call to book a member of the team to visit your school.

The Geographic North Pole expedition saw Antony and his two team mates ski and snow shoe (and sometimes swam) over 500 miles from Cape Discovery to the Geographic North Pole in just 51 days, collecting valuable scientific data for the University of Plymouth.

For the past three years he has been developing his school outreach program, visiting schools and communicating his passion for expedition to children, hoping to inspire them as he was by his hero Captain Scott. This work has flourished to become Education Through Expeditions.

This project (Education Through Expeditions) is a unique pioneering web based resource for teachers, whose purpose is to inspire and educate children of all ages across the world about global climate change issues and to create a greater respect for the planet.

Inspire children and raise a generation of successful learners.

In a recent teacher survey, 100% of respondents said that an interactive link to live expeditions from the classroom was essential and highly valuable as an educational resource.

By incorporating live expeditions into the classroom, ETE helps children to appreciate the variety in global cultures and environments.

What makes ETE different?

Interactive Expedition Discussion Board - We link your classroom directly to expeditions and scientists all over the world. ETE expeditions are heading out from September to the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic, the Desert and the Rainforest. With our exclusive, unique and innovative discussion boards, your class can post questions onto ETETeachers and have them answered not only by the explorers in the field, but also by our panel of experts all over the world.

Connecting Cultures – Though our interactive discussion boards, cross-curricular activities and unique web platform we can provide opportunities to link up directly with international schools and indigenous people. This provides the perfect case study for schemes such as the British Council International Schools Award; allowing your whole class to talk to fellow students around the world and encourage their cultural awareness and understanding to grow and develop.

Deliver inspiring talks and activity days – As well as offering an interactive platform, ETE also delivers inspiring talks and Activity Days to schools and the local community. A wide range of educational resources compliment this exciting online package. 100% of teachers surveyed said they would book another ETE talk and/or recommend us to a friend or colleague.

Becoming an ETETeacher
Once subscribed, you will join a community of ETETeachers who enjoy the range of unique opportunities available from Education Through Expeditions.

Sign up during September to take advantage of our

‘Welcome back to school’ offer of 15% discount

Please contact Josephine on 01752 588346 or talk@etehome.org for more information.

We would be delighted to arrange a convenient time to talk in more detail about our project and range of services the Education Through Expeditions Team can offer you.

We look forward to welcoming you to Education Through Expeditions as an ETETeacher

Education – Inspiration – Adventure

Education Through Expeditions (ETE) is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company that was founded by Plymouth born Polar Explorer, Antony Jinman, in January 2010. ETE was formed with the purpose of connecting explorers and researchers with schools.

Join ETE with a ‘Welcome back to school discount of 15%’, making
September’s membership just £339 plus VAT.

Our site makes it easier for teachers to plan lessons effectively, develop resources quickly and interact directly with specialists in their desired field.

Through our online discussion boards, teachers and their classes can interact directly with explorers and scientists whist they are away on expeditions. ETE expeditions are structured well in advance so teachers can plan their lesson activities around an expedition of interest. We cover expeditions to 5 environmental zones including, Polar, Desert, Ocean, Rain Forest and Mountain. By incorporating live expeditions into the classroom, ETE ensures that students gain an appreciation for the different worldwide environments. By encouraging the exploration and understanding of different habitats around the world, ETE aims to not only help educate children of all ages worldwide but also to inspire them to raise their aspirations for the future.

100% of teachers involved in the Baffin Island (Arctic) project strongly agreed that:

- being able to connect with real people in the Arctic made learning about the environment more engaging.

- the interactive discussion board dramatically improved their class’s learning experience.

- the educational information on the website was essential to learning.

- the responses from scientists and personnel at Parks Canada were informative and inspiring.

- students were more engaged than they would have been in a similar project that wasn’t interactive.

As well as offering this fantastic interactive platform, ETE also delivers inspiring talks and activity workshops to schools, we have run over 250 presentations to date in schools.

Please visit ETETeachers.org for more information or contact the office on 00441752588346

“The first hand ‘expertness’ was extremely motivating and we all learnt (and are still learning) a great deal. There was a definite wow factor to our questions being answered by people who live in a polar region as this is so far outside of any of our experiences.”

Pauline Ross – Deputy Head at Marlborough School, Falmouth

“Plymouth Services for Children and Young People are pleased to be able to support ETE, including their Polar Fun Days, as these support and encourage young people to engage with learning in an innovative and exciting environment, close to the heart of their own communities. Learning of this nature also contributes to the raising of aspiration and building of confidence. We will continue to support ETE throughout the next school year and beyond as we believe it makes a positive difference to the lives of our young people.”

Heather Ogburn – Plymouth Services for Children and Young People

APECS welcomes Antony Jinman to the Council and into the role as the head of the Education and Outreach Committee. Antony is the founder of the organization ‘Education through Expeditions’. Education Through Expeditions has given over 200 school talks and workshops on polar and marine science and expedition life to date. Antony will lead the Education and Outreach Committee and APECS looks forward to his ideas and plans for this committee. Welcome Antony!

Antony Jinman:

The Polar Regions are very much my passion whether on an expedition or through sharing my experiences within schools or the wider community. For me, travel has always made curriculum subjects at school come alive and embarking on expeditions teaches us so much more about ourselves. From my earliest projects I found an equally

rewarding passion, that was sharing those experiences with others. Through the use of satellite communication I started looking at the internet as a means to share expedition life with schools from all over the world and pioneered a delivery platform for schools called Education Through Expeditions. This platform allows schools to follow a live expedition via an online 3D mapping system, read a daily blog with pictures and video and ultimately to interact direct with the expedition team and ask questions on a secure discussion board. Through this system our panel of polar experts and team members can discuss student’s questions, enhance their learning experience and make the classroom come alive. Education Through Expeditions has given over 200 school talks and workshops on polar and marine science and expedition life to date. We have also been very successful at running a program of widening participation projects within the community called Polar Fun Days.

That is something that I have asked myself repeatedly ever since I left school. I struggled through my education, spending time in classes that never interested me; finding the subjects dull and boring because it was what had to be done. I dreamed of being outdoors and couldn’t wait to get home and see what the surf was doing during evenings, or escaping to Dartmoor over the weekends to go hiking and exploring. My boyhood hero was another Plymouth born explorer, Captain Robert Falcon Scott. I wanted so badly to follow in his footsteps and go on an expedition to see remote parts of the world for myself. The classroom was something that I associated with being grounded, stuck in a room as a punishment until I could escape again.

As I got older my love for the outdoors grew along with my passion for travel; suddenly I found an eagerness to learn, to experience and to see everything I could. To be able to venture to a location enables you to fully appreciate the beauty of your surroundings. Whether it is a historical link, the natural world or the influence of different cultures or wildlife, there is always something new to learn, to experience. Being able to use your senses stimulates and frees your mind.

It is this passion that has taken me further on my journey to dream, explore and discover.

Over the past 5 years I have been travelling in the Arctic, completing 12 expeditions whilst learning about the Inuit people, the Arctic environment, the animals that live there and documenting the effects of climate change. I have been shocked at the stories I have heard and the sights I have witnessed travelling through the same landscapes over this period.

My greatest achievement Arctic included a successful crossing from Canada to the Geographic North Pole in early 2010. The Geographic North Pole Expedition saw my two team mates and I ski and snow shoe (and sometimes swim) over 500 miles from Cape Discovery to the Geographic North Pole in just 51 days, collecting valuable scientific data for the University of Plymouth. Over the past few years, I have taken my experiences into over 200 schools, and the enthusiasm I am greeted with from students is just as rewarding an experience as reaching the Pole itself. This has made me realise something else about myself: it is as an educator, rather than an explorer, that I would like to be remembered.

As my journeys take me to more remote locations, so too have technologies advanced; making it now possible to gain satellite phone coverage in the most remote parts of the Arctic. This enables explorers and researchers to send back daily updates of their findings and experiences; it also enables children to send questions directly to those satellite phones. Using a PDA or small laptop those questions can now be answered with stunning photographs, inspirational video footage and gripping stories from the trail. Suddenly these sights, these sounds and these experiences can be sent straight back into the classroom making it an inspiring place in which to learn. Credible eye witness accounts of the world around us can be accessed in real time, whereas a text book is only as current as the day it was printed. It is this that lead me to found my own educational company Education Through Expeditions, a interactive distance learning tool for teachers and students.

For the past 18 months Education Through Expeditions has spent extensive time and resources in researching the market then developing and building a web platform specifically for this purpose. During May 2011 we successfully tested this web platform with the aid of 10 schools from the UK and USA following an expedition to Baffin Island, a project crossing the Penny Ice Cap. During this project, we received over 100 questions asked by students on our secure online discussion board. These questions were then in turn answered by the expedition team members, glaciologists from the British Antarctica Survey, staff from Parks Canada, members of Inuit Communities and young career scientists from UKPN (UK Polar Network). This proved to be not just an essential learning tool for the classroom but also a powerful and inspirational one.

100% of teachers involved in the Baffin Island project strongly agreed that:

- Being able to connect with real people in the Arctic made learning about the environment more engaging

- The interactive discussion board dramatically improved their class’s learning experience

- The educational information on the website was essential to learning

- The responses from scientists and personnel at Parks Canada were informative and inspiring

- Students were more engaged than they would have been in a similar project that wasn’t interactive

The past 18 months have been an exciting time and I am sure the next 18 months will see continual growth within Education Through Expeditions and its services to both students and teachers.

I know, from firsthand experience, how important it is for us all to take an active role in helping young people’s personal development, whether teacher, parent or member of the community. It is in our children that our future as a species lies and so it is the responsibility of us all to make sure that our children grow up in an educational environment which is both inspiring and holds no boundaries. Children need inspiration and to know that they too can reach their own aspirations in life: this is core to everything we do at Education Through Expeditions.

As I struggled within school, I never would have believed that I would have been standing at Bristol Cathedral receiving an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Education. I am extremely proud of this achievement and deeply honoured to have been asked to speak and share in the experience of graduating from the University of the West of England.