Answer for Mrs. Radner's Fourth Grade Class

Mrs. Radner's Fourth Grade Class asked:

Dear Dr. Sokol:
We are exploring the "Westward, Ho!" movement and learning about travel in a wagon. We discussed the items we would bring if we were travelling out West. We saw that you travel by helicopter and that you said you put a lot of gear in that helicopter. We were wondering if the kind of gear you put into your helicopter is similar to what we would put in a wagon to travel out West.

The answer to this question depends on whether I am heading out to the field just for the day, or if I am heading out to a field camp for many days and nights.  When we have a lot of work to do in the Dry Valley desert, we will camp near the work site because it will take us more than one day to complete our tasks.  When I went out to Lake Fryxell Camp I had to pack food, clothes, a tent, a sleeping bag and sleeping mat, some tools, hiking boots, and lots of socks.  I bet this list is similar to what people had in their wagons when they were traveling west.  However, I also took science gear with me.  This included whirl packs (which are plastic bags for collecting samples), instruments to measure the amount of water in the soil, flags for marking plots where we sample, test tubes, and a special liquid chemical for preserving the DNA in soil (so we can study it later).  I suspect that these items would not be found in the wagons in the "Westward, Ho!" movement.  I've included some pictures, below, of other things that we brought out to the field with us...

An instrument that measures the amount of carbon dioxide coming out of the soil.

Stabilizers - these strap on to my hiking boots and give me traction on the ice, so I can walk across frozen lakes and glaciers.

Here I am with my water bottle.  It's as important to have something to carry water in so I don't get dehydrated.

Here is Adam next to a stream on top of a glacier (Canada Glacier).  We stopped to get some water from this stream.  

On the left is a hand held GPS (global positioning system) - this tells us where we are.  We use this to record the location of all of the places from which we collect samples.

Here is Adam sampling some soil near Canada Glacier.