"LIVE FROM ANTARCTICA" PROGRAM SUMMARIES

["Iris R. Wingert" <iwingert@UMD5.UMD.EDU>]

                                  LIVE FROM ANTARCTICA
                                    Program Summaries
                                     (working titles)


THE COLDEST, WINDIEST, ICIEST PLACE ON EARTH        December 13, 1994
                                                    2:00 p.m. EST

How the continent was formed and has changed over time - the rise of
Gondwanaland; Antartica's extremes of climate and weather:  what it takes
to do research in such an environment and the faces and personal stories
of modern science:  how helicopters, ice-breakers and chain-saws are "lab
tools," and many dedicated people with perhaps unexpected jobs -- pilots,
cooks, carpenters -- are "laboratory assistants," along with the Ph.D
scientists with their telescopes, satellites and advanced
telecommunications.  Live interactive interconnects with students in
Texas and Maryland.

LIFE IN ANTARCTICA:  "THEN" AND "NOW"               December 15, 1994
                                                    2:00 p.m. EST

As the continent has evolved, so have the life-forms which live here.  The
program goes fossil-hunting in the majestic Transantarctic Mountains,
summoning up the days when this was tropical forest; studies Emperor
penguins, close up and underwater; and looks at fish with organic
antifreeze in their bodies!  Live video from the Dry Valleys, a place
more desiccated than the Gobi Desert, but where life is found inside
rocks and deep in perpetually ice-covered lakes, we dive to see an
underwater glacier.  Live interactive interconnects with students in
Honolulu, Hawaii and Maryland.

SPACESHIP SOUTH POLE                           Live:  January 10, 1995
                                                      5:30 p.m. EST
                                            Re-Feed:  January 12, 1995
                                                      2:00 p.m. EST

Cut off from the rest of the planet every antarctic winter, America's
Pole station is like a spaceship, testing the limits of human spirit and
engineering; what's Christmas like at the South Pole?  A 17-year old
recent high school graduate from Chicago gives her impressions and
repositions Earth's geograpical South Pole marker, live, during the
program!  The program also explains why astronomers have built some of
the planet's most powerful telescopes at the Pole, studying the origins
of the stars, galaxies and universe from what is literally the end of the
Earth.  Live interactive interconnects with students in Chicago,
Illinois; Honolulu, Hawaii and Charlottesville, Virginia.  Bill Kurtis,
host of "The New Explorers," a co-production of WTTW and Kurtis
Productions Ltd., anchors the Chicago interactive downlink.

ANTARCTICA:  FROM POLE TO PLANET                         January 19, 1995
                                                         1:00 p.m. EST

Governed by international treaty, Antarctica is a place from which all
weapons are banned, a place devoted to scientific research.  What does
Antarctica tell us about how men and women of all nations can cooperate
for the common good?  What do clues hidden in its huge sheets of ice
reveal about past climates and teach us about how Earth's weather may
change in the future?  What can students do, linked by
telecommunications, to help scientists gather data and educate themselves
to build a better future for the planet?  Live interactive interconnects
with students in Barrow, Alaska and Maryland.