AROUND THE POND
When ISP Stands for Ice, Seas, and Penguins
Ned Farmer ’01 on his Independent Study Project trip to Antarctica in February.
Independent Study Projects often fall in three general areas: arts, science, and occasionally travel. An ISP veteran, Vanessa Wood ’01 has won awards for her ISPs in music and physics, and has also done independent work in French. “Vanessa’s physics project was amazingly cool,” said ISP director Rick Lansdale, “especially since she put together an ISP cello concert last year. Ayuko Nakamura’s piano concert was fabulous, as was Reina Mooney’s dance recital. This was clearly a talented group of students.”
“My attraction to Antarctica began on my first trip down to Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of South America, when I was eleven,” said Ned Farmer ’01, who created an Independent Study Project this spring based on a February trip to the southernmost continent. “I got hooked on glaciers, icebergs, seals, penguins, whales, and mountains,” Ned said, “and I saw an opportunity to educate the Taft community about a fascinating part of the world.” Ned created a slide show of his voyage and wrote a paper relating famous Antarctic expeditions “to my own odyssey.” A New York City native, but frequent traveler, Ned’s trip to Antarctica was only the next installment in a series of adventures. By the age of 17 he had traveled to remote regions of Iceland, hiked the Pyrenees, Alps, Adirondacks, and the Mt. Cook range in New Zealand, climbed Ben Nevis (the tallest mountain in the U.K.), and explored the Canadian High Arctic and Greenland—each drawing him closer to the “most beautiful and most remote” place on earth. Embarking on his voyage in February, Ned found himself—one day out on the Southern Ocean in the Drake Passage—in a cyclone with 95 mph winds (hurricane force is 72) and 40- to 50-foot seas. “What I got most out of the trip,” said Ned, “was an unparalleled appreciation and respect for nature and for the sea.”
The following is a list of this year’s projects: Nirica Borges ’01, Perspectives: A Study of Glazes Victoria Choi ’01, Music Box Mechanism Victor Chu ’01, Raku: A Different Approach to Pottery Bancha Dhammarungruang ’01, Visual C++: The Theory and the Application Nathaniel Farmer ’01, A Voyage to Antarctica—The Forgotten Continent Leigh Fisher ’01, Study of the Harp Throughout History Tyler Jennings ’02, A Play: The Metempsychosis of Forgotten Grace Ravi Katkar ’02, Friday-Saturday-Tuesday, A Film Trilogy Tom Keidel ’02, Self-Composed and Performed Full-Length Music CD Samantha Ladd ’01, Woodworking Mihoko Maru ’01, Teaching Japanese Culture to JSL Students Angrette McCloskey ’02, Theatrical Reflections Tim Monahan ’02, Raku: A Different Approach to Pottery Reina Mooney ’02, Body, Mind, and Spirit—Exploration in Choreography Ayuko Nakamura ’02, Piano Possibilities Maiko Nakarai ’02, Japanese Calligraphy Vincent Ng ’01, Visual C++: The Theory and the Application David Sicher ’01, Jazz Trio Dan Teicher ’02, An Application of Music Theory to Guitar Rob Terenzi ’01, Jazz Trio Kelly Wang ’01, Oil Painting in Various Styles Vanessa Wood ’01, Monte Carlo Methods with Applications in Physics
Taft Bulletin Summer 2001
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