impossible2Possible:
Inspirational Expeditions
Nothing gets kids motivated like a grueling expedition across the frozen wastes of Antarctica. That’s what extreme-distance athletes Ray Zahab, Kevin Vallely, and Richard Weber discovered during their 2008 South Pole Quest, a perilous 680-mile, 34-day trek to the South Pole — on foot.
Of course, the team didn’t actually bring any kids with them. They live-blogged the whole thing via MacBook Pro-equipped base camps, so kids throughout the world could join the expedition virtually. In fact, more than 3,000 students at 29 schools across North America followed the team’s challenging journey. “The quest was a total success,” says Zahab. “We set two world records and inspired thousands of kids to achieve the impossible.”
Zahab is a founder of impossible2Possible (i2P), a nonprofit that encourages kids to take on issues like poverty, hunger, lack of water, and environmental sustainability. His incredible feats are used to show students that anything is possible, even changing the world. Now Zahab and i2P are teaming with sports cinematographer David McMahon of XCZONE.TV and award-winning director James Moll to produce a documentary about the South Pole expedition using Final Cut Studio on the Mac.
Enlightening Adventure
The 2008 South Pole Quest was i2P’s biggest adventure to date. To broadcast the feat, the nonprofit built a site where students and teachers could track the team’s progress, ask them questions via email, and learn about everything from ice sheets to solar power to the hole in the ozone layer. “The kids were following our trip across the ice, and also learning about what we saw,” says Zahab.
Zahab and i2P education director Dr. Ewan Affleck compiled a series of lesson plans that corresponded with each step of the journey. Affleck composed the lessons using Pages, the Apple iWork word processing and page layout application. The lessons were uploaded to the South Pole Quest site as PDFs for students and teachers to download.
Once the website and education modules were finalized, Zahab and his team were ready to hit the ice.
Antarctic Connections
Blogging from the South Pole was no easy feat. “Antarctica is one of the most remote places on earth, and it’s very hard to communicate to the outside world,” says Zahab. “But we wanted thousands of students to follow along and be able to ask us questions while we were on the ice.” The solution: A satellite phone and MacBook Pro-equipped base camps in Chile and Los Angeles.
“We called the base camp, which had MacBook Pro systems and an Internet connection,” says Zahab. “The team would read us questions from students, and we would answer them over the phone. They recorded our responses and uploaded them to the site. The kids could log on and hear our responses, sometimes the very next day.”
The expedition team also sent snapshots to their base camp via a custom-built PDA that could withstand the -50 degree temperatures. “We could plug our camera directly into it and send a small photo back to base camp,” says Vallely. “With the photos and our voice blogs, the students really got a good idea of what it was like for us.”
“It looks like a modern-day Indiana Jones to these kids,” says Zahab. “We’re doing something significant, and they realize they’re part of the team. We’ve invited them along to ask us questions and inspire us. We’re bringing thousands of kids to Antarctica without actually putting them on the ice. It’s a very effective, incredible way of reaching them.”
Through it all, reliability was key. “As we travel around the globe, dependability is crucial for staying in touch with the home base,” says Zahab. “Whether we’re traveling to the bottom of the world or trekking through the Arctic, the Mac won’t let us down.”
