Staying warm in Antarctica

In Antarctica you have to wear multiple layers of clothes to keep warm. How many layers you wear will depend on the activity you are doing, if you are sitting still you will need more layers than if you are active.

Points of interest for teachers:

• Note how many layers of gloves have to be worn, have students imagine, (or provide gloves), how manipulating objects could be impeded by the loss of dexterity.

Transcript

DR MEGAN BALKS
Well you have to wear layers and it’s really funny because if you’re sitting – if you’re doing something that involves sitting still you get cold very quickly so you have to put lots more layers on, windbreakers and things. And then if you’re doing a big walk up a hill you get hot very quickly and you’re taking layers off. So layers are the real key and then windbreakers to keep the wind chill out. So always – depending on how hot or cold it is, how many layers you’d have underneath and a really good windbreaker on the outside. And the thing is that you end up with – if it’s cool – you need several layers of gloves and so those things make you very kind of awkward for doing fine work of course and so at first when you first put it all on you feel like a walking snowman because you’ve got all these big thick layers but as you keep working on it you get use to that and then you feel kind of normal it just becomes part of what you do. You have this kind of little dressing ceremony where you put on those extra layers for being outside and when you come back in the door you take them all off again.