Our Skype With Kate Leeming & Following Her On Her Bike Around The World!

Yesterday,  I wrote about our Skype to the giant sequoia trees at Calaveras Big Trees State Park in California with Ranger Jenny. Since our 3rd graders have been learning about Sequoia trees in their Journeys English language arts curriculum, we looked for a connection that would bring them even closer to these amazing trees. You can read about this Skype visit here.  

Another recent theme from Journeys was learning about Antartica.  

When the teachers asked me about resources to support this topic, I was really excited to connect with my new friend Kate Leeming on Twitter and her amazing journey...

...and program, Breaking The Cycle Education. 

As her site states, 

Welcome to the Breaking the Cycle: Education Project! We are excited to see you here. This project is inspired by and the brainchild of Dr. Kate Leeming who’s a motivating adventurer. She has cycled the equivalent distance of twice around the world at the Equator; including the entire continent of Africa from west to east, Australia, and Siberia; released an amazing movie called Njinga; and, written a couple of books (Out There and Back and Njinga). She’s all set to take on an awe-inspiring project of being the first person to cycle across Antarctica via the South Pole.

The Breaking the Cycle: Education project will bring together students from across the world to utilise Kate’s journey as a source of innovation and creativity. Our goal is that the project will support students to lead their schools, communities, countries and the world in making positive change.

To help make the project a reality, Kate has formed a partnership with experiential education experts, JUMP! Foundation. JUMP! envisions a world in which young people are inspired, empowered and engaged through experiential education so that future generations are better equipped and motivated to contribute to a just and sustainable world.

Kate is preparing for Breaking The Cycle South Pole, 

which will be the first journey like this across Antarctica.   

I found her work so inspiring and couldn't wait to have her Skype with our 3rd graders. 

As we all got together in one of the classrooms, Kate Skyped into Van Meter, Iowa to share...

...where she has cycled. We were all shocked and excited to hear it was the distance of twice around the world at the Equator.  Wow!  

She has traveled on these expeditions to places like Australia, Russia, Africa, United States, Greenland and even more. 

It was fascinating to hear her talk about her expeditions to Africa and we loved...

...hearing about the people she meant and...

...things she saw there.  Her photographs were wonderful and really gave us a glimpse into what she experienced along the way.

She talked a lot about her upcoming expedition to The Skeleton Coast in Namibia, Africa in May and June. 

You will find more information about this expedition here and all of the elements that go into this trip.

We are very excited to follow along on this journey with Kate.  We saw on Twitter that she is on her way to Africa right now! 

After we learn with Kate through her presentation, our students asked questions of things they were curious about and...

...things they wanted to know more about.  They were very thankful for the time she gave us on that day. 

Kate left us with this quote and we thought it was perfect to share with our students and others too.

Thank you Kate.  You are such an inspiration and we can't wait to follow you through your expedition in Africa, the South Pole and all of the others in the future. 

To connect with Kate's work, visit her website and on Twitter at @leeming_kate.