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Atlantica Expeditions
A working group known as the Atlantica Expedition has set the goal of establishing the first undersea colony for permanent human habitation.
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| A crew of former astronauts, NASA engineers, aquanauts, medical personnel, filmmakers, educators, and people from other walks of life has been assembled to participate directly. |
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| The crew includes Australian Lloyd Godson. Lloyd recently won the $50,000 Australian Geographic "Live your dream" wildest adventure competition for his BioSUB project. The project was an international sensation, resulting in Lloyd being named as the Australian Geographic Society's "Adventurer of the Year Award" for 2007. |
Lloyd and a student holding
a model BioSUB.
Photo: Border Mail |
The first phase of the project is planned for 2009, when a small crew will live in the first module for a world record 80 days underwater without surfacing. Three of the crew members will stay the full 80 days, setting the record, while other crew members (including Lloyd), will rotate through for smaller time blocks, performing various tasks and activities. During that time press events, webcasts, video productions, and links of various kinds will be occur.
A strong education component will be incorporated, mostly providing internet or telephone links to classrooms of cooperating schools, allowing students to interact directly with the aquanauts in the habitat, ask questions, and discuss the project.
Resources and lesson plans will be provided, which you may use if you wish, but the primary role you have is simply to connect your classroom to the undersea habitat to interact with the crew members, perhaps just once, but potentially more than once, if you feel it's to your benefit.
It is up to you and your educational goals how you wish to use the interaction to support your instruction. |
Lloyd Godson |
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Rather than say much more about the project, please let me invite you to visit the website, www.underseacolony.com. You will have access to a welcoming video, pages describing various aspects of the project, crew biographies, and designs of some of the components in the project. I think you will find the website captivating, and perhaps worthy of using in your classroom now. |
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We plan to accept about twenty to twenty-five cooperating schools from around the world, representing different age groups and locations (not just high schools). Please consider carefully whether this is something you wish to become involved in. The time demands should be minimal, but the commitment is a serious one, since in the near future, the list will be filled and closed to additional participating schools.
This model shows the Dan Scott Taylor II (DST II) undersea research
submarine which is being built for the Atlantica Expeditions.
The focus is on the teachers, not school administrators or school buildings, since it is the classroom teacher who will decide how best to use this opportunity. If you change school locations, you can have the option of participating from your new school if you like.
If you wish to be listed as a cooperating school, please send Lloyd a return email with your name, your school's name and mailing address, and the grade levels you expect to participate in the project.
In the next month or two, I may ask you a few questions, and would like permission to post your school's name on a web page being created for participant schools within the Atantica website. |
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We may eventually devote a webpage to your school within the site. We will accept participating schools on a first come-first served basis, subject to regional and grade level distribution goals of the project. If this interests you, please respond as soon as possible. By late December, I will send invitations through other channels if there is still space available.
Lloyd Godson
MESA is proud to be an education program sponsor for the Atlantica Expeditions and will regularily provide updates on this amazing project.
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