Cobblestone articles from April 2009

Cobblestone archives from April 2009

Editor's note.(North Pole expeditions)(Column)
April 1, 2009... It's frozen land in which just surviving is an effort, but that hasn't stopped people from heading to the Arctic and trying to discover its mysteries. Exactly 100 years ago this month, Robert E. Peary was recognized as the first man to reach...

Into the frozen north.
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Arctic has challenged explorers for centuries, in part because of its bitter cold and winter darkness. Sixteenth-century European explorers hoped to find a more direct water route to the Far East's profitable...

The Arctic cirle.(Mapping It!)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] illustrated by Courtney Garrity

The Arctic world.(Geographic overview)
April 1, 2009... Although everyone agrees that the Arctic is at the "top" of the globe, its boundaries are not clear. The Arctic consists of a large, ice-covered ocean bordered by North America, Asia, and Europe. There are several ways to define the Arctic....

Polar opposites.(South Pole and North Pole)(Geographic overview)
April 1, 2009... North Pole, South Pole, it's all the same, right? Not so fast! It's true that both regions are extremely cold and covered in ice, but there are some glaring differences between them. First, the northern polar region is known as the Arctic, and...

Call of the Arctic.(Robert Edwin Peary)(Biography)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Robert Edwin Peary longed to accomplish something that would secure him a place in history. "I must have fame," he once wrote to his mother. Born in 1856 in Cresson, Pennsylvania, he spent most of his childhood in...

Guess who?(Arctic animals)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The polar bear (see page 39) and the walrus (see the back cover) are two of the most famous residents of the North Pole. Can you match these other native Arctic Circle creatures with their...

Minik's story.(Inughuit boy who came from Greenland)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The ship Hope docked at Excursion Wharf in Brooklyn, New York, on the last day of September 1897. It carried a cargo of coal, but that wasn't why a huge crowd of people gathered to meet it. On board was Robert E....

Finding a way.(ship used in the Norrth Pole expedition, Roosevelt)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Crowds cheered and tugboat whistles blew as a stubby 184-foot schooner-rigged steamship sailed out of New York Harbor on July 6, 1908. Aboard were Commander Robert E. Peary and a hand-picked crew to accompany him on...

Peary vs. cook.(Robert E. Peary and Frederick A. Cook)
April 1, 2009... Explorers tried for centuries to reach the North Pole. Suddenly, in September 1909, two Americans claimed to have been the first. Robert E. Peary, famous for his previous polar attempts, declared that he had reached the North Pole on April 6,...

Forward, March!(equipments used by explorers in the North Pole)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's time to pack your sledge for the race to the North Pole. Your expedition leader, Robert E. Peary, has planned this trip very precisely. Your sledge cannot carry a single ounce of extra...

Arctic partner: the Inughuit had never seen anyone like her.(Robert E. Peary's wife Josephine D. Peary)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The lone female who arrived at McCormick Bay in western Greenland with the 1891 U.S. expedition was a white woman--and the wife of Robert E. Peary, at that. Most remarkable of all, it seemed she had come to stay. ...

Did you know?(Arctic)
April 1, 2009... The word "Arctic" comes from the Greek word Arktos, meaning "bear." The Great Bear, or Big Dipper. as this constellation is commonly called, is positioned in the northern sky and points to the North Star. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Maripaluk.(Robert E. Peary's assistant Matthew Henson)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In a hat store in Washington, D.C., history was made in the spring of 1887. The U.S. government wanted to find a way to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and U.S. Navy civil engineer Robert E. Peary was headed to...

Field day on the ice.(Robert E. Peary's journey to the North Pole)
April 1, 2009... There it was in front of them: the "Big Lead." About 50 miles out on the Arctic Ocean, Robert E. Peary and his men were halted by a wide lane of open water. Peary had encountered this type of lead on two earlier expeditions. Now Peary's 1909...

Just ask the natives.(Inughuit)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Robert E. Peary was smart to turn to the Inughuit for help on his expeditions. The Inughuit have lived and thrived in northern Greenland for thousands of years, pitting their intelligence and skills against freezing...

Man's best friend.(Sledge dogs)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Travel through the Arctic was impossible without sledges to carry supplies, and dogs to pull those sledges. Carefully bred through several generations, the most common Arctic dogs were the Alaskan malamute and the...

Studying earth's frozen frontier.(The Past Is Present)(North Pole Environmental Observatory)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Robert E. Peary's 1909 journey didn't end Arctic exploration. A century tater, scientists are still investigating the Arctic using ships, satellites, and research stations in Alaska, Greenland, Canada, Scandinavia,...

Working together.(International Polar Year)
April 1, 2009... Polar science started a new era with the 2007-2008 International Polar Year, or IPY. During this period, 50,000 people from 60 countries performed research in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Many of the projects focused on climate change. ...

The journeys continue.(modern explorer Tom Avery's expedition to the North Pole)(Cover story)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One hundred years after Robert E. Peary's expedition, modern explorers still attempt to reach the North Pole. The current record is held by British explorer Tom Avery, who set out in 2005 with the intention of...

Polar bear contest.
April 1, 2009... With the ice pack at the North Pole shrinking, life for polar bears is getting more difficult. Less ice to walk across means polar bears are forced to swim greater distances to get food. This results in less energy to successfully capture a...

Whose Pole is it?(Going Global)(international law on owning the North Pole)
April 1, 2009... Can one country claim to own the North Pole? International law states that no country owns either the pole or the area of the Arctic Ocean that surrounds it, but several countries recently have begun arguing over it. These nations want to...

The Rain.(Your Letters)(Poem)
April 1, 2009... The Rain The rain is a spirit that has its own way with words and looks at us in a special way. I It speaks to us in a language that no one understands. It's a fierce creature that cannot be contained. It taps on...

Matthew Henson.(Your Letters)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Benjamin Mortimer, age 10 Millis, Massachusetts

Igloo.(Your Letters)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Madei Davis, age 8 Birmingham, Alabama

Matthew Henson.(Your Letters)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Fredda Cardwell, Age 8 Birmingham, Alabama

Robert E. Peary.(Your Letters)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Mark Frederick Tyrone, Pennsylvania

Super science teacher.(Your Letters)
April 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Felicity Bosk, age 13 Peterborough, New Hampshire

Fire and Wood.(Your Letters)(Poem)
April 1, 2009... Fire and Wood The crying wood and the dancing flames are fighting together. How sad that wood would not win. The fire, happily laughing, the wood, sadly dying, while the fire dances above....

The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
April 1, 2009... The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World by Andrew C. Revkin (Boston: Kingfisher, 2006, www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com) is the true story of New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin's trip to the North Pole to cover an...

Polar Explorers.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
April 1, 2009... Polar Explorers by Stephen Currie (San Diego: Lucent Books, 2002, www.gale.cengage.com/ lucent) devotes chapters to individual explorers, including Robert E. Peary and Matthew Henson, describing their mission to reach the North Pole, the...

Onward: A Photobiography of African-American Polar Explorer Matthew Henson.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
April 1, 2009... Onward: A Photobiography of African-American Polar Explorer Matthew Henson by Dolores Johnson (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2006, www.nationalgeographic.com) tells the story of the remarkable and sometimes overlooked role that...

Peary & Henson: The Race to the North Pole.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
April 1, 2009... Peary & Henson: The Race to the North Pole by Baron Bedesky (Crabtree Publishing Company, 2006, www.crabtree books.com) describes how these two explorers worked as a team, focusing all their efforts and energies toward overcoming incredible...

Amazing Arctic & Antarctic Projects You Can Build Yourself.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
April 1, 2009... Amazing Arctic & Antarctic Projects You Can Build Yourself by Carmella Van Vleet (White River Junction, Vermont: Nomad Press, 2008, www.nomadpress.net) introduces readers to the animals and environments of the North and South poles, and then...

Ethan Rates It ...(pearyhenson.org/robertepeary/index2.htm)(Product/service evaluation)
April 1, 2009... **** [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We've all heard of Christopher Columbus, Lewis and Clark, Neff Armstrong--people who embarked on journeys that took them to places unexplored. But have you heard of Robert E. Peary? Not exactly a household...

The Arctic Land.(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
April 1, 2009... The Arctic Land by Bobbie Kalmon (New York: Crabtree Publishing, 1988, www.crabtreebooks .com) offers a good introduction to life in the Arctic, the international people who inhabit the area, the animals that are native to the region, and the...

psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole.(On the Web)(North Pole Environmental Observatory)
April 1, 2009... psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/ is the Web site for the North Pole Environmental Observatory, an "automated scientific observatory in the central Arctic Ocean." You can see how an international research team has been gathering data about the...

www.ipy.org.(On the Web)
April 1, 2009... www.ipy.org/takes you to the International Polar Year Web site. This organization focused on studies of both the Arctic and Antarctic for two full yearly cycles--from March 2007 to March 2009--as they gathered the most complete information....

www.cookpolar.org.(On the Web)(Frederick A. Cook Society)
April 1, 2009... The official Web site of the Frederick A. Cook Society, www.cookpolar.org, features a biography of the Arctic explorer, as well as comments by other polar adventurers on Cook's character and accomplishments.

www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html.(On the Web)
April 1, 2009... The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offers views of the Arctic taken every two hours. Go to www.arctic.noaa.gov/ gallery_np.html, and while you're there, check out the FAQs ("Frequently Asked Questions") as you brush up on your...

Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum.(Places to Visit)
April 1, 2009... Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine; www.bowdoin.edu/ arctic-museum/index.shtml. Named for Robert E. Peary and Donald MacMillan, the museum offers displays of polar gear, natural specimens, and photographs. The Web...

From the Archives.
April 1, 2009... A number of explorers and expeditions have been covered in past issues of COBBLESTONE. Perhaps one or more of the following titles might interest you: The Legacy of Columbus (COB9201) Sieur de la Salle (COB9910) Eskimos (COB8511)...

That's a real icebreaker!(Say What? exploring the origins of words and sayings)(history of phrase 'break the ice')
April 1, 2009... In a tense or formal situation, such as when meeting new people, we often look for ways to "break the ice," or start a conversation so that people can feel at ease. The origin of this phrase dates back to early polar exploration days and the...

Space cowboy.(Dr. D's Mystery Hero)( James A. Lovell, Jr.)(Column)
April 1, 2009... This month, I was curious to see whether any modem-day heroes have made the difficult journey to the North Pole, and what I uncovered truly excited me. This month's mystery hero did a lot of traveling. In fact, his dream of traveling beg...

Brain ticklers.(the North Pole and Robert E. Peary)
April 1, 2009... Give your brain a little tickle to see how well you read and understood this issue on Robert E. Peary and the North Pole. If you believe the answer is false, give yourself the ultimate test and see whether you can explain why it is false....

A final word.
April 1, 2009... Do you have the urge to travel and see new places? What is the most exotic place you'd like to visit?

Cartoon connection with Ebenezer & The Colonel.(Cartoon)
April 1, 2009... Where did all of this STUFF come from? That's no ordinary stuff! I'm collecting GEAR and SUPPLIES for an EXPEDITION to the NORTH POLE! I thought his idea of an expedition was a trip to the refrigerator! HE's planning an expedition?...

The whale horse.(Creature Feature)(the walrus)
April 1, 2009... Imagine coming upon a creature such as this during an early polar journey! The first explorers must have been astonished by the size of these Arctic dwellers, whose name, "walrus," most likely--and fittingly--comes from a combination of the...