Polar explorer and naturalist Brent Houston spoke on the importance of the endangered polar pack ice habitat today during long lunch in Nichols Atrium.

Houston accompanied 12 upper school students and two faculty members on the Arctic biology trip last summer and will lead another Harker expedition in June. In his presentation, entitled “Disappearing Sea Ice Habitat: How Warming Polar Regions affect Penguins and Polar Bears,” Houston used anecdotes and photos of his 27 years working at the poles to demonstrate the adverse effects of global climate change on the sea ice that polar ecosystems depend on.

“[Pack ice] has to form early enough, it has to be thick and complex and it has to last late enough into the summer,” Houston said. “If you don’t have that, after four or five years of bad ice, you start losing your penguins.”

Pack ice, also known as sea ice, hosts algae growth in the Arctic and Antarctic and supports the lives of caribou, seals, walruses, fish, birds, ice seals, arctic foxes, polar bears and penguins, among others. With the acceleration of global climate change, dwindling amounts of pack ice destroy colonies of certain species, like the Adelie penguin. In Houston’s time working in the Antarctic, he saw numbers of Adelie penguins decrease from 29,000 pairs to between 3,000 and 4,000.

Houston also shared his experiences working as a penguin mating researcher, photographer for National Geographic and Arctic tour guide.

“I spend most of my time pulling people away from [polar] bears that might kill them,” Houston said of the latter.

Gary Blickenstaff, upper school biology teacher and one of the faculty attendees on the Arctic trip, explained that while Houston accompanied Harker to the Arctic last summer, the naturalist will take a more active role in next summer’s expedition.

“The places we’ll be going, the boat, all that kind of stuff is very different than last year’s trip. We’re going to have better research facilities to work with than we had on this previous trip,” Blickenstaff said. “And Brent’s going to be very involved in the trip.”

Science department chair Anita Chetty invited upper school students to Houston’s talk in an announcement during Monday’s meeting, and other organizations such as UNICEF, WiSTEM and Green Team also encouraged their members to attend the talk. Akshay Battu (12), Green Team President and student on the Arctic trip, sent an email to members of Green Team prior to the presentation urging them to attend, sharing a personal anecdote from when he first met Houston.

“I think that Brent gave a really personal touch to experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic,” Akshay said. “If someone just came by and told us about research in the pack ice, it wouldn’t help, but because he showed us so many pictures and told us a lot of his anecdotes in the Arctic, it really gets people more interested in trying to help the environment and save the pack ice and the animals on it.”

After the presentation, Elena Bronder-Chang (11), another student who attended the Arctic trip this past summer, reflected on how Houston’s talk on the melting pack ice and destruction of polar habitats changed her outlook on climate change in the Arctic.

“It was really great hearing him again,” Elena said. “Before I didn’t know much about climate change, but now I realize how horrible it might get.”

The upper school science department will host an informational meeting next Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Nichols Auditorium for students interested in attending the two week Arctic research expedition this summer.