The Antarctica Overview Effect

Before we came to Antarctica, I wasn’t sure what to expect. For sure it was a unique place to come, and many people assumed that I was co-leading this trip because I wanted to visit the contient.

But this wasn’t strictly speaking true. Certainly I had ambitions to visit Antarctica, but as a researcher, not a tourist.

I took on this study abroad because someone needed to, and I was the person where the buck stopped at the time.

Since then, the trip has been a committment to keep and professional responsibility, and not a dream, not an ambition, not a life goal, and certainly not a bucket list check-box.

However, having experienced what we’ve experienced together, my thoughts and ideas about bringing a bunch of students here have been turned upside down.

People who go to space talk about the “overview effect” where seeing Planet Earth from a different perspective profoundly changes how they think and feel about the planet and the people who live on it.

Antarctica and its associated islands has its own overview effect as it turns out. And it’s one that changes people who experience the continent first hand.

Since embarking on this trip, I have been thinking a lot about its true value to students from very different backgrounds, and I’ve come to the realization that it is this overview effect.

Beyond coming here to do research or to study the continent’s wildlife, I now believe, from what I’ve experienced and seen in others, that this overview effect has the ability to change people, to leave them transformed, to alter the course of their thinking and actions.

And I believe this is at the heart of what makes this trip so important, despite my earlier reservations.

In effect, what I am saying is that I’m a victim of the Antarctica Overview Effect, and that I have gone from co-leading this study abroad because it was my job, to advocating for it because it has the power to change people’s lives — not as a journey of a lifetime, but as a journey that will have a lasting impact over a lifetme.

Andrew Maynard
ASU Antarctica Study Abroad co-lead

December 30, 2022

Afterword

This reflection was written toward the end of the study abroad to Antarctica, just before we celebrated New Year together with each other and the passengers, crew and staff of the ship Ocean Victory. It was part of a group assignment where we captuted our thoughts about the journey we’d been experiencing and read them aloud to the group — you’ll find reflections shared by others from the same exercise on this website.

Apart from a couple of minor edits for clarity, this is directly transcribed from what I wrote in long-hand in my journal on December 30, while we were still in Atarctica. Looking back, it reflects my deep unease about the cost, exclusivity and privilege of the trip going into it, and my changing perspective as I began to see the transformative power of what we were all experiencing together.

Having had time to think further on this after returning home, I am more convinced than ever that there is unique value in making experiences like this accessible to students from all backgrounds ad abilities, and to removing barriers of cost, privigedge, and exclusivity as far as we possibly can. 

There’s a tendency to think of visiting Antarctica as a check box on a bucket-list — something to do when you’re older and richer; a journey that proclaims you’ve done something that few others have had the opportunity to experience. I even had some fellow passengers (thankfully a minority) question why we were “wasting” this on students when it should be more of a reward for having a successful anf profitable career. 

I could not disagree more. Antarctica should never be just a bucket list check-box. It should not simply be a plaything of the rich, privileged, and self-proclaimed “successful.” And it shouldn’t be a destination that is exclusively for those who consider themselves amongst the elite of this world.

What this study abroad demonstrated more than anything is that the power and the value of visiting places like Antarctica is not in simply being able to say you’ve been there, but in being exposed to environments and experiences that deeply transform you.

As a consequence, this is an experience that should be accessible to anyone who has the potential to be changed by it, and to live and act differenty as a result — irrespective of age, background, ability, and especially wealth. It’s also an experience that is only enhanced when those you experience it with are different from you.

This is why I am now such a strong advocate for our students having the opportiunity to experience for themselves the Antarctoca Overview Effect, and to allow its ripples to spread for years to come through their lives, their work, and the communities they touch.

Of course, it is expensive traveling to such a remote and remarkable place, and the financial barrier to many students is a serious one — this is why we worked so hard to find ways of making the trip as affordable as possible to students.

But this is also an incredible opportunity, and not just for our students, but for others who do have resources and a passion for changing lives and the world we live in to help remove these barriers.   

And this is where I may need to back-track on my ealier comments, because maybe Antarctica should be a bucket-list tick box. Not a tick-box not to say you’ve been there though, but one to say you’ve enabled someone else to experience the continent first hand and to transformed by the Antarctica Overview Effect.