Journey to the End of the Earth by Tishani Doshi

Extra QnA

Q. 1. How was the climate six hundred and fifty million years ago?

Ans. Six hundred and fifty million years ago, things were quite different. Humans hadn't arrived
on the global scene and the climate was much warmer, hosting a huge variety of flora and fauna.

Q.2. How did Gondwana disintegrate?

Ans. Gondwana thrived for 500 million years but with the time when the dinosaurs were wiped
out and the age of the mammals got under way, the landmass was forced to separate into
countries, shaping the globe as we know today. Antarctica was the central part of Gondwana.
India was pushed northwards jamming against Asia and formed the Himalayas. South America
drifted off to join North America opening up the Drake Passage to create a cold circumpolar
current.

Q. 3. Describe Gondwana.

Ans. Gondwana is a huge landmass - a super continent, the undivided earth, which existed
million years ago and then started drifting away slowly, giving rise to different landmasses
called continents and different water bodies called oceans, etc. It was centred roughly around
present-day Antarctica. Gondwana had no human life but only flora and fauna.

Q. 4. What does the author describe as her best Antarctic experience?

Ans. Just short of the Arctic Circle, this group of fifty-two people were made to walk on the
ocean. The experience of walking on ice that seemed to stretch out forever, with the living,
breathing ocean underneath, was nothing short of a revelation for the author.

Q.5. What is like walking into a giant ping-pong ball for the author?

Ans. For the author, who is a South-Indian and has spent her life in sun, spending two weeks in a
place where 90 percent of the earth's total ice volumes are stored, is a chilling prospect. It's like
walking into a giant ping- pong ball devoid of any humans, trees, billboards and buildings.
Q.6. How has the rapidly increasing population harmed the Earth?

Ans. The rapidly increasing population has left us battling with other species for limited
resources and the unmitigated burning of fossil fuels has now created a blanket of carbon
dioxide around the world which is slowly but surely increasing the global warming.

Q. 7. For the narrator spending two weeks in Antarctica is a challenge not only for the body but
also the mind. Elaborate.

Ans. The narrator calls her trip to Antarctica a journey to the end of the earth. She was
wondered at the sight of the large continent, its isolation and serenity. She could not believe the
fact that once India and Antarctica were the part of the same land mass. She felt that she had
reached to the part of history.

Q. 8. What do you understand by 'Students on Ice'?

Ans. 'Students on Ice' is an educational programme which is headed by Canadian Geoff Green.
He takes high school students to Antarctica to teach them the impacts of human activities there.
It helps them foster a new understanding about the Earth. With this programme, he offers the
future generation of policy makers a life changing experience at an age when they're ready to
absorb, learn and act.

Q. 9. Name two ways in which Antarctica has been impacted by human activity.

Ans . Global temperature is increasing due to the increasing burning of fossil fuels. It has
created a blanket of carbon dioxide around the world, which could not only result in Antarctica's
ice sheet to melt entirely but can also affect activities of the Phytoplanktons, which could in turn
affect the global carbon cycle.

Q. 10. Antarctica is a doorway to the past. Explain.

Ans. Antarctica is the place to study the Earth's past history. It can help us understand better
the formation of continents and mountains like the Himalayas as they are in the modern world.
It's ice-cores hold over half-million-year old carbon records that are vital to study the Earth's past,
present and future.

Q. 11.Antarctica is unlike any other place on Earth. Justify the statement.

Ans. Antarctica has simple ecosystem and lack of biodiversity; above all, it is untouched by
human beings. The sound of occasional avalanche or calving of ice sheets can only be heard in
Antarctica. Only this continent on earth presently is in its purest and original form as it holds in
its ice-cores half million-year-old carbon records trapped in its layers of ice.

Q. 12. 'Students on Ice' is a programme that prepares global citizens. Discuss.

Ans. Students on Ice is an educational journey to Antarctica. It takes high school students to
show them the terrifying impacts of human activities in Antarctica so that, the students - the
future policy makers of the earth - will realise that the end of the earth is quite near and
therefore, something should be done to save the planet.

Q. 13. What did the author and her companions observe while walking on the ocean?

Or

What does the author describe as her best Antarctic experience?

Ans. The author and her companions, all 52 of them observed a meter thick ice pack underneath
their feet and beneath that, 180 meters of living, breathing salt water. In the periphery, Crabeater
seals were stretching and sunning themselves on the ice floors much like stray dogs under the
shade of a banyan tree.