Six hundred and fifty million years ago there was no life except a giant southern super-continent named Gondwana. Things were quite different and the climate was much warmer. It had a variety of flora and fauna. Gondwana thrived for 500 million years. Finally it broke into separate countries as they exist today. It was the time when dinosaurs were wiped out and the mammals got under way. Thus Gondwana centred around roughly the present day Antarctica.

In case we visit Antarctica, we can realise where we have come from and where we could possibly be leading. It is to understand the significance of Cardilleran folds and pre-Cambrian granite shields, ozone and carbon, evolution and extinction. Thus, geological phenomena help us to know about the history of mankind. Due to geological changes, India pushed northward and formed the Himalayas. South America drifted off to join North America. The melting of polar ice caps can tell us where possibly we are heading to.

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Human civilisations have been around for a paltry 12,000 years. People have dominated over nature and thereby villages, towns, cities and mega-cities have cropped up. The resources are limited but our human population has increased rapidly. So we are battling with other species for the limited resources. Hence a great depletion of resources is underway. Further the burning of fossil fuels and pollution have created a blanket of carbon-dioxide around the world. Thus, our tenacy on this earth is shortening day by day.

There is a long controversy over the environmental changes. The global temperature is increasing. The ice-caps and the glaciers are melting. There is every likelihood of overflooding in the ocean. On the earth and in between the nature, we are bent upon decaying the ecological balance through deforestation. Many species of forest have become extinct. Thus there is a great danger of human survival. Our future is quite bleak and the scientists are warning us about all these dangers and changes in the environment. If this goes on at a rapid speed, the day is not far when the nature will swallow the human beings.

Six hundred and fifty million years ago, there existed a southern super-continent named Gondwana. There was no life and Gondwana centred roughly around present-day Antarctica. At that time things are quite different and the human beings had not arrived on the global scene. There the climate was much warmer and there was only a variety of flora and fauna.

There was a time when India and Antarctica were the part of same landmass. The human beings had arrived on the earth billions of year later. Gondwana thrived for 500 million years. Finally it broke into separate countries as they exist today. It was the stage when dinosaurs were wiped out and the age of mammals had started. India pushed northwards and the Himalayas were formed. South America drifted off to join North America. It opened up the Drake Passage and created a cold circumpolar current. It turned Antarctica frigid, desolate and at the bottom of the world. Thus the study of Antarctica helps us in knowing the geological history of the world.

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Geoff Green is a considerable Canadian explorer who aims at organising “Students on Ice” programme by taking high school students to the ends of the world. He thinks it most essential to provide the students with inspiring educational opportunities to know more about the Antarctica. Through this they will generate a new understanding and respect for our planet. Earlier Geoff Green had organized programme with celebrities and rich people which gave him back only in a limited way. Since the students are young minds and full of adventurous activities they can learn, act and absorb much by visiting the Antarctica. They can see through their own eyes glaciers retreating and ice-shelves collapsing. They can realise the future dangers, catastrophic effect of climatic changes and the global warming.

The Antarctica provides the young students a perfect place to study the varied changes occuring in the environment. These little changes can have significant consequences. The students can see those grasses of the sea that flourish, nourish and sustain the entire Sourthern Ocean’s food chain. Thus the programme provides a lively study of changes and the realities going on the Antarctica.

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