Life Under Ice - Intermediate Years by The Learning Collection

Story Books

Intermediate Years


TIL004 Life Under Ice

...It is a wonderful story, presenting a view of immigration not generally seen in books for children...namely, whether or not to return to the country of origin

Price: $ 16.95 / Each

Mary M. Cerullo
Photographs by Bill Curtsinger

Marine photographer Bill Curtsinger has returned to Antarctica a number of times to photograph the animals and plants that survive in the icy, ice-capped waters at the end of the earth. Mary Cerullo shares his story with us, telling what it’s like to start a diving trip by cutting a hole in ice eight to ten feet thick, then diving into the chilly depths with the light shining through your entry hole the only beacon to your escape route.

Bill’s amazing photographs and his and Mary’s lively curiosity about the world combine to show us a strange and wonderful part of our earth, where some fish survive by having clear blood that acts like antifreeze, jellyfish and sponges and sea spiders grow enormous, the food chain is short, and even minor changes in conditions can affect the survival rate of baby penguins. We learn how penguins and seals are adapted for life on the ice and under it, how the ice acts like a greenhouse roof for marine plants during Antarctica’s summer months, and how it keeps the water warmer than the air during the frigid winter.
Bill meets scientists from all over the world who travel to Antarctica to study not only its marine life, but weather, the stars, climate change, and human impacts. This is inquiry-based science, up close-and often under ice. A glossary and resource list at the end of the book continue the learning, and an excellent curriculum guide on Antarctica is available online from the American Museum of Natural History at www.amnh.org/education/resources/antarctica/index.php
Mary Cerullo is an award-winning children’s science writer and the author of our two Sea Soup books on phytoplankton and zooplankton, as well as many other children’s books, including The Ocean Detectives and The Truth About Great White Sharks. She is the director of Maine’s marine environmental organization Friends of Casco Bay.
Like many explorers before him, Bill Curtsinger first traveled to Antarctica as a young sailor. He was in the Navy Combat Camera Group, assigned to photograph the work of National Science Foundation researchers. In the years since, Bill’s work has appeared in numerous books (including our Sea Soup books) and in every major world magazine, including thirty-three articles in National Geographic. He lives in Yarmouth, Maine.

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