Pre-expedition

During this stage, Karen Darke will visit the schools along with a team of Careers Scotland advisers. Karen will outline the challenges facing the expedition and what is entailed crossing the 600km ice cap by ski when you’re paralysed from the chest down. The pupils will then look at the challenges facing them in their own lives and plan out how they can overcome or deal with them. They will be challenged to tackle some of them while Karen is tackling her challenges crossing Greenland on ski.

During the expedition

The school pupils will communicate with Karen via emails, photos and audio clips posted here (satellite providing!), on the Highlands and Islands Enterprise website. This will give the school pupils a sense of the challenge facing Karen and motivate them to carry on working on their own challenges. Karen’s emails will include content on how on the multi-national team of adventurers are working together and what lessons she/they are learning about working with other people. The pupils will have an opportunity to ask Karen questions when she phones each school live from the ice cap or via this website.

Post-expedition

Karen will give a short presentation to the pupils about the expedition and how she dealt with travelling and living on Greenland's ice-cap - in temperatures as low as minus twenty degrees Celsius.

This process of Karen reflecting will encourage the pupils to reflect on how they have overcome their own challenges and what they have learned about themselves. Careers Scotland advisers will then plan with the school pupils as to how they can put these essential lessons and life skills into practice in future, when planning their own careers and lives.