Not surprisingly the South Pole has limited communications. The South Pole is located too far south to be able to use commercially available geostationary communications satellites. Instead it uses 3 different satellites specifically operated for the South Pole to get high quality communications for about half the day. For the other half of the day the South Pole relies on lower sound quality Iridium satellite phones.
Have students come up with questions before hand to make sure everyone doesn't have the same ideas and to reduce stage fright. There are no good and bad questions. There are questions that get asked a lot, and you are welcome to ask them again, such as "How cold is it?".
After you send an email to IceCube you will be contacted by a coordinator who will try and find a time that is convenient for you. After the date and time has been set you will be put in contact with the person who will facilitate the actual interview. This person will ask for some updates and offer any help we can provide in lead up projects. They will ask for a new estimate on how many students will participate. You will get some guidance as to how long you will be able to talk to the South Pole and what the expected quality of the link will be.
A few days before the interview the facilitator will want to do a simple test to make sure your phone system is adequate and that you can call the University of Wisconsin.
On the day teachers typically plan to do some Antarctic related activity leading up to the interview, such as watch a documentary, and then have a short time for the students to talk about what they want to ask or say to the IceCube staff at South Pole.
At the arranged time it is simply a matter of placing the phone call. The IceCube facilitator will normally be the first person on the call and will do a roll call and wait until all participants, especially the South Pole, have joined. At this point the interview will start with the IceCube facilitator introducing everyone, and maybe setting up the scene a bit. They will then turn the call over to the teacher or group leader. The goal is to keep the interview fairly free form. We will rely on the teacher or group leader to facilitate the conversation between the students and the people at Pole. Remember to keep it fun and be creative. It doesn't have to be just questions. We recently had some students sing the staff a rap song they wrote about Antarctica (South Pole enjoyed it very much). The IceCube facilitator will have given you some guidance as to how long you have (at least 30 minutes). It is fine to go over time, especially if there is something interesting happening! Finally, once all the questions have been asked, the IceCube facilitator will wrap up and the South Pole will say goodbye ending the call.
Some time after the interview the IceCube coordinator will send you a follow up questionnaire. We would appreciate your feed back to help us improve future interviews and to help us keep some statistics on how effective the program is.
Our goals is to provide a fun learning experience for as many young people as possible.