Join teacher Sandra Kolb aboard the new U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker, USCGC Healy for icebreaking performance tests occurring during April and May 2000 in Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, between Canada and Greenland. The goals are to assess whether the Healy performs in ice as well as it was designed to perform, and to develop a set of ice operating guidelines for the ship drivers.

Sandi will be working with scientist Terry Tucker, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, to assist in finding the proper type of ice in which to test the ship, then measuring the properties of that ice.

• The general area containing the floes will be located by satellite imagery that will be received on the Healy.
• Then helicopter reconnaissance flights will be used to determine precise locations of the floes and measure their initial thickness.
• Before each test, a team will go onto the ice to make detailed ice thickness measurements using an electromagnetic instrument and by drilling holes.
• More properties of the ice will be determined by collecting ice cores. Measurements of temperature, salinity and density of the ice cores will be needed to determine the strength of the ice.
• The ice properties measurements will be combined with the ship operational data at the end of each test to assess the performance.

	Read Sandi's Arctic Journal at http://tea.rice.edu/tea_kolbfrontpage.html    Medium Iceberg Photo by Sandi Kolb
	Find out more information about the icebreaker USCGC Healy at http://www.uscg.mil/pacarea/healy/index.htm
The YES I Can! Science database has curriculum-linked resources to use with your students in following this real-time scientific adventure.