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This year five teachers were invited

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on board NASA’s P-3B aircraft to fly at 500 meters

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above the glaciers of Greenland with Operation IceBridge, a six-year mission

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to study Arctic and Antarctic ice.

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Two teachers from Greenland, two from Denmark, and one from the U.S.

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were given the opportunity to see polar research first hand,

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and then take that experience back to their classrooms.

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First impressions ... you know, of course the views.

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Just every where you looked

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just these spectacular views. Terrain that is

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very foreign. You know, I grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania

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and of course I've seen snow before, but never the glacial terrain

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that you see on one of these flights.

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Peter Gross: Being on an IceBridge flight, first you get

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the surprise that you're allowed to do a lot of things. You're allow to go around

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and look at all the researchers' work,

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we're allowed to talk to them. We're even allowed to go out in the cockpit

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as long as we don't bother anyone too much. That's the biggest surprise.

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Offscreen: How was takeoff?

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This is about the most exciting thing

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I've done for a long time.

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The next one is that it's a bit tough. You need to be able to

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grab on to something when you come into the air holes

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you need to be prepared for some turbulence and for a bit of air sickness if

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you're not too strong. And you have to eat

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and you have to drink a lot because, eight, nine hours

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on a flight is a long time

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Erik Jakobsen: You might say it's

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incredible experience to see the ice from

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above and the mountains and

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flying with these incredible pilots, going very low over the

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glaciers, going very close to the mountains, so

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that has been a fantastic experience to see how

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such professional people can do their work.

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And talking to the scientists, and feeling

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their enthusiam toward these subjects

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Tom Svennesen: I don't know what I really thought

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would be there. But when you see it, there's actually nothing.

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It's like a completely white desert.

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You can see there's nothing. No life, no tree,

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no animal. Nothing. Just flat ice.

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But then when you get to the edges, it gets much more interesting.

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You have mountains and you have the crevasses.

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I think for me the crevasses was the defining moment.

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When you are looking down into the crevasses and

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you're imagining how would it be if I was down there,

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walking with a backpack, maybe a ski

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could I manage, could I pass there?

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Narrator: The teachers took advantage of a day on the ground

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to travel to the terminus of the Russell Glacier,

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where they were able to touch the ancient ice and sample the glacier’s meltwater.

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[music]

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While they stayed back a safe distance from the glacier’s calving front,

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two hikers from a different group provided a sense of scale as they got

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dangerously close to the wall of ice.

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[music]

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Tim Spuck: You know I've spent 20, 22

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years teaching about glaciers and teaching Earth science

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classes where we've talked about erosion and weathering

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due to glaciation. But I've never seen it.

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Until today. Until the flight.

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And I think that makes you a better teacher, a better communicator

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of the science

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Narrator: Peter Gross has already shared his experiences with his

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students back in Denmark, and plans to incorporate scientific concepts