Fortunately, She Thinks Ice Is Nice

Doing scientific experiments all day and most of the night on a Coast Guard vessel in below-zero Arctic temperatures sounds like a fantastic time to Simone Welch.

That's a good thing, because that's just what this science teacher from the District's Oyster-Adams Bilingual School is doing. For about six weeks!

Welch, 32, won the opportunity to join a team of about 40 scientists as they research glaciers and other things in the Bering Sea, near the North Pole.

"I told my kids to give me letters to Santa and I'll drop them off early," she joked.

She was one of 12 teachers chosen in the United States, and the only in the Washington area, to participate in the program, called PolarTREC and funded by the National Science Foundation.

Since the beginning of this month, Welch has been living in conditions that certainly are not luxurious.

Aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, she shares a small sleeping space with two other scientists.

The meals, she said, are "geared to 18-year-old boys," but there is a salad bar!

In the past, Welch has been seasick, but she does not expect that to happen this time because the ship is so sturdy, she might not even feel as if she is at sea.

When she is on deck she wears a Mustang Survival suit, which is orange and "puffs out" so that if she were to fall overboard, she would float. Steel-toed rubber boots complete the deck outfit.

For the almost daily trips onto the glacial ice, she and the others will wear white suits and boots to blend in with the snow so they don't startle the animals.

Welch can wear regular clothes, though, when she is helping the scientists in the laboratories, which is what she will be doing most of the time and which most excites her.