Feet of Green
Feet of Green was launched in 2008 as an inspirational initiative:
- To help focus the attention of as many people as possible, especially the young, on the fast changing global environmental challenges that we all face.
- To motivate by example, showing both the young and the not so young that if you really want to do something and you research and focus yourself on the challenge, nothing is out of reach.
- To demonstrate to children how determination and commitment combined with training and ability can enable them to achieve in the field of sports and adventure.
- To enable supporting organisations to demonstrate how they are investing significantly in a positive way in order to minimise any negative impact on the natural environment.
The Coolest Classroom in the World…
The first initiative took place in May 2008 and was the crossing of Greenland by Alan Chambers MBE and Peter Herbert. They led the largest ever British polar expedition focused on education. The objective was to cross one of the world’s largest glaciers and bring the experience to the classrooms of the United Kingdom and beyond.
The journey was 550 kilometers and lasted 26 days. The team endured some of the most extreme weather conditions known to man whilst on the icecap.
Alfred Wegener
Alan and Peter took their inspiration from two of the early pioneering scientists and explorers, Alfred Lothar Wegener (1880–1930) who was a German interdisciplinary scientist and meteorologist, who became famous for his theory of continental drift, and Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (1861-1930) the Norwegian explorer, scientist and diplomat.
Wegener’s views were seen as too radical in his day and he gave his life in an heroic attempt to rescue a support team which were stranded trying to bring supplies to the mid-ice station in 1930.
Nansen
Nansen made his first voyage to Greenland waters in a sealing ship in 1882, and in 1888 succeeded in crossing the Greenland icefield on skis from east to west. In 1893, he sailed to the Arctic in the Fram a purpose-built, round-hulled ship which was deliberately allowed to drift north through the sea ice, a journey that took more than three years. During this first crossing of the Arctic Ocean the expedition became the first to discover the existence of a deep polar basin. He was the first to note and describe dead water.
Nansen was a professor of zoology and later oceanography and contributed with groundbreaking works in the fields of neurology and fluid dynamics and the origin of ocean currents. He also invented a bottle for collection of water samples from various depths known as the Nansen bottle.
Pre Expedition
The team visited a number of schools across England and Wales in the run up to the expedition and many of these visits are reported here on this website. Students heard first hand about the motivation and planning required for the expedition and met with the Feet of Green team. Many schools initiated environmentally focused projects in their school or community, inspired by Feet of Green.
During the Expedition
During the expedition the Feet of Green team were accessible through interactive blogs, video reports, images and e-mail reports, which thanks to the wonders of the latest technologies, enabled rapid transmission and reporting on this website. Schools, teachers and students were encouraged to stay in touch with the adventure and to post messages and questions which were passed onto Alan and Peter on the ice.
Post Expedition
Following the expedition the team have been visiting schools and education institutions to tell the story of their adventure and to report on the key findings. The team are hearing about ecological and environmental projects led within schools.
What Next…Feet of Green 2009
Due to the high success of the Crossing of Greenland in May 2008 which was the inaugural expedition, there is much speculation about plans for 2009. Schools, educational institutions and corporate organisations are providing many suggestions as to how we should continue to build on the momentum already created. The Feet of Green team are currently reviewing the success of 2008 and considering their options for 2009 which will be announced on this website in due course. We will be remaining true to the ethos of Feet of Green which is to continue to inspire the younger generation with a spirit of adventure and a positive focus on the environment.
66 comments so far
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hi Peter,
just wanted to let you know that the website is looking good. hope things are going well.
from your best and better looking sister!!!!!
Hope everything goes well with the expedition. I will be letting the school kmow of this site as i’m sure it will be of interest.
A great idea with great expectations from all of us who like to dwell within a comfy environment.
wrap up well and best of luck to you all
The Stig.
Alan,
What a fantastic project. I wish you all the very best. If anyone can do it I know that you can!
Best regards
Nicholas
Alan, all the very best the next endeavour - I am amazed at the scope of the project and also the variety of ways in which this journey will reach out to children.
I will forward to my colleagues that you so inspired during your presentation here at Bank of America.
Warm regards and bon chance. Jill Hewitt
good stuff Pete I will spread the word!
best wishes
geoff
Once again Scunny…”Ever so proud!!” Good luck to you both for the May exped no doubt it will be another “fantastic achievement!” Love Big Siss xx
All the best with the expedition Pete, the lads at Flybe are behind you!
Nice polish by the way!!
Steve
Hi Alan and Peter,
All the very best with this project. It is a fantastic idea and I’m sure all children will be enthralled with your adventures and learn ahuge amount.
Regards
Mark
Keynsham RFC
Alan (Scunny)
Good luck - Fantastic idea, as always an inspiration to one and all.
Gareth, Helen & Boys
This looks like another exciting project; Knowing Alan as I do he will be really focused to endure the challenges ahead of him and his Team. Somerset CCC wish him and all his Team the very best of success in this project.
Alan worked closely with the Squad in our successful 2007 season and I feel his experiences through this adventure will again provide a transferable learning to benefit our professional sport.
hi i saw u on a school trip thankyou for the notepad
.how deep is the snow
.how cold is it
how long does the snow last
i went to see the presentation at HMSG and it was amazing and inspiring and i was engaged!!!
This is a message for
Lauren walker
Ashley
and Rory
Firstly thankyou from all the team for coming to HMSG school to see us and find out about the Feet Of Green expedition.
Hi Rory
Glad you enjoyed the day and as for the pad you’re welcome. Hope you enjoy following the trip as it happens.
Pete at FOG
Hi Ashley
You asked how deep the snow is. Well it all depends on the amount of snow fall and the wind as well as how hot it is.
Some times there is no snow at all and at other-times there can be many metres as the wind will move it about. When the wind dies down and the snow settles the temp can melt it a little and as it re-freezes it becomes one big lump and the wind can’t move it.
More snow will fall on top and the weight will crush it down. Then the same thing hapens to the snow on top and so on and so on and this makes the Greenland icecap.
The temp can fall as low as -40c and lower and when you add on the wind chill it gets realy cold.
All the best
Pete at FOG
Hi Lauren
Glad you enjoyed the day hope you tell all your mates and get involved as the expedition goes forward. Remember if you want to do anything like this you have to learn well, train hard, and never lose sight of your dreams.
Good luck
Peter at FOG
Drakes C of E Primary School, East Budleigh
On 28 February Peter Herbert visited Drake’s School to talk to the children about his forthcoming Greenland adventure. The children were fascinated, amazed and thoroughly entertained by his presentation, and they had many questions to ask. Of particular interest were the perils of attack by hungry polar bears, the possibility of breaking an ankle in a blizzard and exactly what happens to fingers and toes when they get frostbitten. They admired the sled, skis and snow garments that Mr Herbert brought along with him, and bravely tested the high calorie food which will be a major part of the expedition’s diet. Thank you very much, Mr Herbert, for an exciting afternoon (better than maths). The school will be keeping in touch with you during your expedition and we look forward very much to receiving regular news of your journey across Greenland.
When you came in the morning on the 3th of march into Bassetts Farm when we saw the pictues in the hall today. I wanted to be an expurrdishon purrson. But when I saw the polar bear on your friends back and frost bite I thought no way! and thank you for letting us touch your stuff.
Hello Drakes C of E Primary School
Thanks for letting me come and visit your school and listening to the talk’I am glad you enjoyed it and I look forward to visiting you again when we get back after June.
keep in touch and I will look out for your messages when I am on the ice
All the best
Peter and the Feet Of Green team
Hello Ella Amor from Bassetts Farm School
Glad you had a good time and look forward to seeing your schools messages on the site as time goes on.
Take care
Peter and the the Feet Of Green team
You are a great explorer wen u came to my school brumby junior school. I didnt no any thing about baffin island or the North pole.Thank you for comin to our schoolll we like you so so much have a great time dont get cold. Tell your crew we sed hello hoping to see you again.!!!
lots
of
love
lauren norris
and
josh blendell
Surely by travelling to Antarctica you are producing vast quantities of CO2 and are therefore damaging that which you say you are aiming to protect. Can we have information about how you intend to get there and the size of carbon footprint please?
Conrad
It is the Arctic the adventurers are heading to - we have met with the British Satandards Institute and started the ball rolling in mapping the expedition against the BSI 8901 standard for sustainable event management - we are aware of the importance of achieving more benefit than debit overall in terms of the environment and in a sense this will come form the positive awareness we are creating amongst the younger generation. There is always a trade off and whilst it will involve energy to get the adventurers there and across the ice we are engaging young people in schools to help identify ways of being as energy efficient and environmentally friendly as possible. For instance one school is designing a wind turbine for use on the ice, another is helping with a diet and nutrition project. Our aim is that by involving children in this way they will become more aware of the environmental issues and challenges and if this helps influence their approach to the environment in any way this will be of benefit for the future.
Keep looking at the website as the expedition unfolds to find out how Alan and Peter are working in as environmentally friendly a way as they can. Hope this helps.
Richard Hale
what happens if the ice melts and the people are still living there?
what is it like training?
does alan eat all the pies?
how do you do a wee in the cold?
how do you build an igloo?
Hi Alan … You’ve been of great inspiration to me in recent years with my studies and I wish you, Peter and Richard all the best with this great adventure … hope to catch up soon.
Thank you for replying so quickly. We hope everything is going well with your preparations. The children are working on some pre-expedition questions to ask you. Would it be possible please for Drake’s School to have its own page on your web site so we can keep all our correspondence together?
Hi Josie Collins
These are great questions thanks alot
As the Ice melts on and around Greenland there will be much change to the local eco systems,as the food chain changes in the surounding saes so the animals that live on them will change and this will affect greatly the people of Greenland.
How it will all change no body knows all we know is that it will change.
But all is not lost, through modern science we are learning what and how to better predict future events and when you understand these findings you can better prepare yourself.
There is a great amount of information about this and related topics on the Feet Of Green education page on this site so please take a look.
TRAINING
The training is going well and we do enjoy it “most of the time”
for the last year we have been keeping a good level of fitness down at the gym but just after Christmass we changed the training to tyre draging and running this keeps up a good level of fitness and is exelent sledge pulling training.
PIES
Yes Alan will eat all the pies unless I get there first ha ha.
HAVING A WEE
This is a favorite question when we go to schools.
“As fast as possable”
Its not to bad when you are outside but when you are in the sleeping bag it can get tricky,we have a bottle to wee in and then we chuck out side the tent, this way we do not have to get out of the bags and we dont lose heat.
Sometimes if its realy cold you can screw the lid on tight and the wee bottle becoms a hot water bottle, you dont pour it out untel it cools down this way we are not throwing heat away.
IGLOO
The best way to find out how to build an igloo is to ask an expert.
Have a go at trying to contact a greenland school and asking them but make sure you ask permision before doing this.
Dont forget to mention Feet Of Green and let then know about the expedition.
Hope this answers your questions and thanks for the chat.
Peter from FOG team
I hope you come back to Brumby Junior School again .We all liked your photos.Do you like it there?
Dear Alan
I know a language that the world does not called fridge. Every day it changes but not 1 of them stays the same so here it is fridge=please
from ara ps miss doltn helpd me
I hope you enjoyed your visit to Brumby Junior School. We all enjoyed your photos of the North Pole see ya.
Have you got ang sleep and what yor crew names.from kieran
I hope you come back to Brumby Junior School because we really enjoyed your pictures.
From nathan mark wilson
from liam watkins
Well done for going to the North Pole
well done for going to north pole see you later dude.
Kimberley (age 9), Drake’s School, East Budleigh
Hello Mr Herbert
Are we in danger of flooding from the ice melting?
Why is Greenland called Greenland not Snow land or White land?
Katie (age 10), Drake’s School East Budleigh
Good morning Mr Herbert
Where do you pitch your tent at night?
What time do you pitch your tent?
What would you do if a polar bear was outside your tent in the morning?
Scott (age 10), Drake’s School, East Budleigh
Hi Mr Herbert
What will you do if you get caught in a blizzard?
Hi Peter,
I have contacted the makers of your contact lenses as we discussed, so if there is any information out there on how your contact lenses will react in such an extreme environment they will let me know. I will be in touch as soon as i receive anything!
Best wishes,
Brian.
HI Alan,Peter and Richad
We really enjoined your big project today i go to holy trinity school. Good luck on your trip to Antartica. When you did that talk today it let us get away from our fears to achive what we want to be. We hope that you discover new things on your jorney, hope you travel safely and come back safley Good Luck.
P.S hope you e-mail us back bye
Dear Richrd
That was a very good exabton today it was so intresting ,i did not khno that golblewallame . I rely enjoyed it, it showed me that i should be more crelful, and we shouled take more care of this plant.
Form william and luke
Dear Peter,
Hello, our names are Anjeli & Sofia. Sofia is 10, and Anjeli is turning 10 this month! We have a few questions for you. Plus we thought your exebition was very instresting. We learnt alot from it!
How did you first get the job and how did you find it at first? In your adventures, has any animals attacked you? Was there any women on the exepedsion? because it would be unfair on the women. Approximitly how long those it take for an iceberge to melt into icy water?
Here are even more questions for you!
what animals did you see in the exepedsion?
Keep in touch - Sofia & Anjeli!
hi i loved getting your autogragh i also learned alot too good luck
Thanks Brian
it will be interesting to see what they come up with
All the best
Pete
Best wishes to Alan, Peter and the team from us all in the Royal Marines. As you know our motto is ‘By Sea, By Land’ well normally it’s one or the other, you seem to be doing them both at the same time!!
Have a great exped and keep us posted of your progress and I will pass on to the rest of the Corps. If we can help in any way do not hesistate to contact me. Steve Richards
To William and Luke and to the Holy Trinity School…
Thanks for your note and positive comments. We are all getting really excited about the expedition now. You will see some new things on the website in the next few weeks.
We really enjoyed the talks and team building exercises at the event at Bishop Douglass School. We got lots of good photographs and are going to put them up in the Gallery section of this website.
It was great to see how many schools in the Barnet area are interested in Feet of Green.
We also look forward to hearing about any projects you do in your school which help the environment.
from Richard, Peter and Alan.
Alan, Great idea. Great website. Best of British to you, Peter and the whole team.
Regards, Gary
HI good luck we are very intresed in what you are doing
Hi! Thank you for the talk at Bishop Douglass- I found it really interesting! I never thought that any ‘normal’ person could just plan to go off somewhere so cold with no help.
Q. Where would you like to explore after Greenland?
Hi Peter,
Ciba Vision tell me that there is no concern regarding your contact lenses freezing whilst you are wearing them as you cornea will prevent the temperature of the lens falling to this point. However, you should try to keep the lenses you are not wearing as close to your body as possible as he body heat should prevent their storage solution from freezing - if this happens it is likely that the lenses could be damaged & cause discomfort when you insert them. Hope this is of some use & best of luck in your adventure!
Regards,
Brian.
Mandi
Thanks for your positive comment and question. We are discussing in the team some ideas about where the adventurers might want to go next. There have been some disussions about Antarctica for the future and we have even discussed ideas of going to extremely challenging places which are hot rather than cold - such as the jungles. At the moment these are just ideas rather than definite plans. What ideas do you and your friends have about where the team could go in the future? If you have some suggestions then post them here - remember part of our purpose is to draw attention to environmental issues in a positive way…
Richard on behalf of the Feet of Green team
Hi Brian
Thanks for the info about my eyes realt appreaciate you looking into it for me
thanks
Peter Herbert FOG Team
dear peter and alan wishing you a safe trip,and a safer return, take care
mum and dad x x
thanks for replying to my comment we were llandogo school thankyou very much i hope the journey goes very well
what influenced you to cross greenland
Harrison and Edward
Thanks for your message - I was with Alan today and he is working late tonight with final packing and checking equipment but knows you are coming to the send off tomorrow at Bristol Airport and we look forward to seeing you.
Richard (Feet of Green)
To (P&A)
Did you get frost bite and did you have to wear your socks in your sleepingbag.
Hannah
sadie (age
how cold is it there?
I hope you dont get frostbite?
will you make an igloo?
how much day light do you have there?
do you think there will be any snow
storms there?
how long are you there for?
love
from
sadie
hope you dont get really cold.
Hi Sadie
temperature reports are that it is warmer than they expected - a bit above freezing point for much of the day which means the ice is melting on th esurface making skiing very difficult. Currently they are having to climb a lot - yesterday Alan told me they were having to get through ice boulder fields with boulders the sze of houses - there are lots of crevasses due to the ice melting - see the video of the crevasse that Peter filmed yesterday.
They won’t make an igloo but they will be building ice blocks around their tent when they get up on the top to protect the tent from severe winds. They hope to have completed the challenge within 40 days.
Thanks for your good wishes.
Richard
My schools learning about the Feet of Green. Sounds fun, good luck :)!
How cold is it?
Do you sleep in a tent or an igloo?
Which would be warmer?
Good luck - Don’t get too cold.
Lila
Just wnated to wish you all luck. Wrap up warm - you don’t want frost bite!
Just a few Questions -
How cold is it?
How long are you there?
Do you just stay out there or walk along it for hours-on-end?
Hope you can answer those, also
How many people are going?
Looks fun and Very intresting!
BRrRrRrRrRr
looks cold - i am very excetied FOR you
Dear Alan & Peter
Amazing work, you are sharing your experience with so many.My thoughts are with you.I wish you good luck,good health and every day an enlightenment to all who are with you in spirit.
take care.
Berni
Hi Pete,
we just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, hope you packed a candle and cake.
Have a great day.
Chris , Rob, Joshua & Jessica
Hi peter and alan
hope you’re back soon to enjoy better weather (not) in england
have you seen any animals? if you have what type of animals?
from Harry G-F
5w
Hi guys
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!
An amazing Feat. Climate change is something that efects everyone of us. I will be showing my daughter this website. As her school is the only one in our area that is a sustainable school. I am amazed that you have inspired so many young minds. once again Well Done and welcome home.
To Peter and Alan,
Glad to know that your expedition is coming to a close. How was it? It seems rather cold there seeing all the gear and frostbitten fingers. I was one of the kids at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School who went to see your presentation Bishop Douglas school in East Finchely. I was really inspired by the presentation to help save our environment and Iceland, Norway and Antartica’s ice caps solid. Infact I felt ready to tag along but the symptoms of hypothermia, frostbite and the cold slighty put me off. But I am ready to help at home :)! Good luck to you in your travels and keep inspiring children and adults around the world to start beling more green!
From Anneka
you have inspired me lots
i will help the enviroment alot more than i have been recently
lots of love and good luck on your next trip
hannah
aged 11
eloo:) oh u were great out there i heard your coming to henbury skooll on thursday
c ya then