With the backing of the Julia R. Brown Education and Research Fund, Trevor traveled to Argentina in February 2025 to film and produce a documentary that explores how South‑American stakeholders—especially Argentina—approach climate change on the Antarctic Peninsula. In this post, Trevor demonstrates how his media‑focused capstone “Polar Guardians 2” blends his Coast Guard ice‑breaker experience, language teaching background, and passion for polar communication, positioning him for future work at the nexus of climate science, outreach, and cultural competency.
Thank you to the Julia R. Brown Fund for their generous support of my capstone project. The travel grant enabled me to create a project that was enjoyable, educational, and enriching to my peers. The project arose from a couple of conclusions: 1) Climate Change in Antarctica is most pronounced on the Antarctic Peninsula and 2) The nations with the largest footprint in the Antarctic Peninsula are South American nations. Despite my polar background, I knew nothing about these nations’ commitment to Antarctica, and decided to make a documentary to report on what South American stakeholders could teach us about climate change in this sensitive region. I narrowed my focus to Argentina, because they had a holiday celebrating their country’s relationship with Antarctica on February 22nd, which would act as a focal point for the film.
I was interested in doing a media capstone because of my background — I had worked as a Coast Guard icebreaker driver and was also the ship’s media person as a collateral duty. I saw how photos and videos of the polar regions captured attention on social media, and so I wanted to challenge myself to create a more sophisticated media project. Prior to joining the Coast Guard, I taught foreign languages in middle school and high school, and I also thought it would be cool to try to combine polar issues with foreign language work. I believe this project succeeded in every respect, as it gave me the knowledge of how to use video editing software, it greatly improved my Spanish, and it increased my knowledge of climate change in Antarctica, while generating a media product that has educated over 100 people, according to the latest YouTube view count. The video is available below, as well as on YouTube here.
The most striking aspect of the experience was the sophistication, competence, and education level of the Argentine professionals I interviewed. I had internalized an elite attitude that Scripps was the pinnacle of climate research- but the Argentine professionals I interviewed were able to articulate an understanding of polar climate change that was as subtle or sophisticated as any I had encountered at UCSD. A non-academic aspect of the project that struck me was experiencing the inverse latitude of places I had lived in the United States Buenos Aires is about the same latitude as San Diego, Patagonia is about the same as Seattle, and Ushuaia is about the same as Juneau. In each case, I visited a place with the same solar insolation as somewhere I had lived in the Northern Hemisphere, but with inverted seasons. Many plants and animals seemed to fill similar niches as the same latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, but were their Southern Hemisphere doppelgängers.
I would be happy to continue working at the intersection of climate change in the polar regions and cultural competencies and communication. I am considering returning to work as an educator, doing more polar logistics but with an emphasis on documentation and outreach, and learning a new language relevant to the polar regions like Inupiaq or Yupik. My wife was recently accepted to the University of Westfjords in Iceland as a master’s student, so we are moving there next. I have also been hired as a dispatcher in the communication center of McMurdo for the upcoming Austral Summer. Both of these places are apt subjects for future “Polar Guardians” sequels. Nevertheless, although I was able to secure the job as a dispatcher on the basis of my previous Coast Guard experience, I would be happy to grow into a position with more leadership opportunities, more of a climate nexus, and more cultural competency required.
Thank you for enabling the creation of this documentary. I hope the readers of this blog are able to visit the Southern Cone of South America one day, and meet with the competent and inspiring professionals who live and work there.
Blog content and images provided by Trevor Layman – thank you!