Have you ever felt confused by the complexity of the polar regions? Or realized that your knowledge just scratches the surface of these far-off places? If you have, you are certainly in good company. All of us – especially the project staff at Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears – have been confronted with our lack of understanding of the Arctic and Antarctica. While most of us haven ‘t actually been able to visit these places, we are continually expanding our knowledge and developing a polar “sense of place.”

In this spirit, we’d like to share with you a new type of reflection: a digital story. If you aren’t familiar with the term, a digital story is a short movie comprised of narration, images, and a soundtrack. This particular story was the result of a three-day intensive workshop at Ohio State University’s Digital Union. In the story, Jessica Fries-Gaither describes her own journey to a better understanding of the regions and why we should all brave this “wilderness.”

If you are unable to view the embedded video below, you can also view it directly on YouTube or Teacher Tube.

Digital stories are a new medium for us and one that we hope to utilize in the future! As always, your comments and suggestions are much appreciated.

This article was written by Jessica Fries-Gaither. For more information, see the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears Contributors page. Email Jessica at beyondpenguins@msteacher.org.

Copyright August 2011 – The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0733024. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This work is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license.