This expedition has been a major program of the Bookend Trust in 2015. Although the Bass Strait adventure is over we're not quite finished with the Shy Albatross quite yet. With Dr Rach and the Pennicott Foundation we have set up the Shy Albatross Fund to raise funds and awareness for research into the future. This will be officially launched at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania in late November with an exhibition featuring photogrpaher Matt Newton and artist Richard Wastell. It will also be around the time that the student exhibition, Albatrossity, for Tasmanian primary school students will be in the gallery. It will be stunning so please try to get there from 21st November 2015- 3rd April 2016. Let me know if you'd like to enter art for Albatrossity and I'll email details directly (andrew@expeditionclass.com).
Search for the Shy Albatross Day 27 : 12-09-2015
Thank You and Next Year
This expedition has involved a lot of help from people and they need a big thankyou and online clap. (clap, clap, clap)
My wife Nic has been updating the website each evening and making sure the planning for the student expedition went smoothly. She must have done a brilliant job because it did! The website itself has been a monster volunteer effort by ICS Multimedia and thanks John and Doug for making it better than ever. Dr Rach, Dr Alastair and Dr Eric were our experts this year and did much more than just answer science questions.
Dr Rach has been the inspiration for the whole project and Dr Alastair even came out to THI for a week in the field. Awesome. And thanks to the students and their parents who bravely put their trust in us to take them on a Bass Strait adventure. John and Bev O'Brien on THI went way beyond expectations to make our final week a memorable one. Guide Emma Haley, Rat Greene and Ben on the boat round out the island crew who made the students trip, in their words, the best thing ever.
Thanks to John Hammond and family (Robbins Island Wagyu) for wise words and the use of the shack on Walker Island and Alan and Jan Larcombe for car parking and a warm bed at Hellyer Beach. Sea to Summit provided some vital last minute quality equipment and the Mercury NIE took the story beyond the website to a larger audience (thanks Damian). The Australian Department of Education and Training support this work in a big way through an Australian Maths Science Partnership Program grant and it wouldn't be possible without that funding.
The Bookend Trust has a lot of friends out there but we have a special relationship with the Pennicott Foundation and a huge thanks to Rob and his team for background help, especially with the setting up of the Shy Albatross Fund. Kara Spence produced most of the wonderful lessons you have hopefully been using and Versal provide the publishing platform for them.
You can probably see that these expeditions need a lot of help along the way to work. It sometimes might look like I'm just paddling around and posting photos and stories and having fun (all true), but there's a team of people who make it happen. Lastly and most importantly THANK YOU students and teachers. Without you using the program it simply would not continue, you're right in the middle of it!
Next year I'd like to invite old and new students to join us in Central Tasmania to explore the land and solve a mystery that lies beneath the ground. There's a freshwater burrowing crayfish up there and we need to find the edge of it's territory and map it for science. It will be a journey about rivers and how very important they are. Cirque 2 Sea in 2016- hope you can join us.
Andrew
