Larkin students connect to Arctic via teleconference

Chris Bobkowski isn't anywhere near Larkin High School this week.

In fact, the biology teacher is about 1,200 miles straight north of Elgin - in Manitoba, Canada, at the Arctic's edge.

Distance didn't cut into his lesson plans, however.

For the first time in school history, students participated in a live teleconference via online video and phone service Skype - listening and asking questions about Bobkowski's 10-day trip researching global warming.

Dean Kevin Wiland said that all students who had math and science classes during the school's sixth period were brought to the auditorium to take part in the teleconference.

Those who had study hall that period were told to get their work finished ahead of time so they also could come.

Bobkowski is one of a small group of teachers, engineers and university researchers from around the country on the trip to the "polar bear capital of the world," led by renowned climate change bio-geographer Peter Kershaw.

Bobkowski's journey is being paid for through a grant from HSBC in the Community Inc.

He told students Wednesday that he's participating in two projects in Churchill - soil sampling and looking at the effect of a changing tree line on the local population.

Stepping up to the auditorium's podium and speaking into a laptop, sophomore Erika Hernandez asked Bobkowski if polar bears were adapting to climate change.

The bears, he replied, seem to be picking up grazing and hunting patterns of grizzly bears that live south of the Arctic Circle.

Sophomore Drew Shore wondered how climate change would affect various species. Climate change, Bobkowski said, likely will cause extinction among the smaller species and force modifications on the lifestyles of larger ones.

"It's our responsibility to see what we can do to modify our impact," he told students.

Sophomore Josh Brooks said the experience was a nice change of pace from his regular chemistry class, where he would have been learning about density Wednesday.

Bobkowski returns from the adventure Sept. 15.