Friend of DCist Jim Darling sent us this video last week of his friend Ann Posegate’s trip to the South Pole with the National Science Foundation. Posegate is a local journalist and educator who works for the National Environmental Education Foundation and also blogs with the Capitol Weather Gang. Although her trip was back in January of this year, we thought you might enjoy a virtual trip to one of the coldest places on Earth. Also, penguins!

We asked Posegate how she got this amazing opportunity:

Every year or two NSF sends a handful of journalists to Antarctica to report on the science research going on there. It’s a competitive process. I’m a severe weather junkie and I’ve always had a fascination with cold places. I also have a background in environmental science, education and science writing. So when when I heard about this opportunity last fall, I gave the application my all. I submitted a joint application with Dan Satterfield, a broadcast meteorologist from Huntsville, Alabama, who partners with the organization I work for. He is a veteran climate science communicator and paid his way to the Arctic in 2007 to report on changes in that region. We had the right combination of knowledge, experience and audiences. A few weeks later, we found out we were going to the bottom of the world. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life.