Volunteers
Molly Breslin
Molly Breslin helps WCO in many capacities. Molly helps moderate student and teacher comments, filter team member emails, and edit and publish content during our online expeditions. Molly has also contacted dozens of foundations, and helped us obtain our largest grant to date!
Adam Hansen
Started volunteering for WCO in the Fall of 2004 when he was in charge of state-side logistics and webmaster for the Rainforest Project. Then he joined us in the field for two adventures, the Boreal Forest Project, and Project Peru. Now Adam is now a lawyer, and volunteers as much as his busy schedule allows.
Ashley Pfannenstiel
Ashley Pfannenstiel is involved with marketing and public education for WCO. When she is not working for WCO, Ashley is managing the REI store in Chicago. With REI, she strives for environmental sustainability and giving back to the community. Ashley holds a degree in art and education and maintains an active outdoor lifestyle in her hometown of Chicago. She takes her camera and her passion for the outdoors with her wherever she travels. Ashley loves to share her knowledge of the outdoors with others.
John Thompson
John Thompson graduated from the Bradley University and the University of Chicago where he studied Ecology and Education. John has taught in Chicago, the suburbs, many of the area museums, and recently retired from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. As a teacher he led over 500 field trips with his students to more than twenty states and four different countries. Currently he teaches with the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University. As a scientist and teacher, John has worked in the tropics, prairies and mountains. His work has been featured in books, videos, magazines and television in the United States, Korea and France. He has made over 40 presentations at conferences on teaching and learning and the use of technology in classrooms. John’s work as been recognized by several groups including as the Environmental Educator of the Year and Sigma Xi Outstanding Teacher.
Jessica Wallendal
Jessa has worked with WCO in a variety of capacities. Most recently, during the Trans-Amazon Expedition, she coordinated communication between the team, teachers and students. She also helps to create and edit curriculum materials. When not at work with the Birch Grove Foundation in Tofte, Minn., she can be found in a canoe, in the garden, or playing fiddle.
We are always looking for dedicated volunteers. If you are intersted in learning more about volunteer opportunities please contact us.
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During stage 1 we will kayak 1,400 miles from Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska. The Pacific Northwest is home to a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial animals. We will be studying whales and other marine mammals, kelp forests, salmon, and many other species.
The Pacific Northwest is home to a variety of large land mammals including Grizzly Bears, and Black Bears. Above and below the surface we are sure to find plenty of things to learn about. Many of these large mammals need large undeveloped spaces to thrive and the roadless sections of British Columbia and Alaska provide the perfect habitat.
From Skagway, Alaska we will hike over the Chilkoot Pass in the footsteps of thousands of gold seekers who struggled across the pass to reach the Klondike. Many of artifacts remain from those early days, and we will follow their path all the way to Dawson City along the mighty Yukon River.
From Bennet Lake on the eastern side of the Chilkoot Pass we will canoe through a chain of lakes that form the headwaters of the Yukon River past White Horse and down the swift flowing Yukon River to Dawson City. 
From Dawson we will hike 100 miles through the mountains to the headwaters of the Blackstone River. The Blackstone flows into the Peel River, which flows in the McKenzie River, which will lead us to the Arctic Ocean. The rivers flowing through these rugged mountains as some of the most pristine wild rivers in North America, with hundreds of miles of flowing waterways between towns or roads.
After over 2,600 miles of paddling and hiking we hope to reach the Arctic Ocean before freeze up. We will spend the month of October,2010 training our dogs, and learning about native life in the Arctic. In November we will head south along the McKenzie River by dog team, crossing 1,800 miles of frozen wilderness. There are many remote native communities along our way and we are sure to learn a lot from the people we encounter.
When the ice melts in the Spring of 2011 we will transition from dogsled to canoe and paddle 2,300 miles along the historic travel and trade route pioneered by Alexander McKenzie, Samuel Hearne, and other Canadian Explorers in the 1700's. We will finish this stage of our journey in the fall of 2011 by completing the 8 1/2 mile Grand Portage which will lead us to the rock shore of Lake Superior.
After spending the winter giving presentations and making final preparations we will begin 4,800 mile kayak journey from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Key West, Florida. The first 2,200 miles will take us through the Great Lakes and out the Saint Lawrence Seaway. 
During the final stage of our journey we will kayak the length of the Atlantic Coast from the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Key West, Florida. We will be following the seasonal whale migration from the Bay of Fundy in Maine to the warm clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way we will visit cities large and small, and study a variety of ecosystems and environmental topics. We also plan to take side trips into the cyprus swamps and Everglades National Park looking for Alligators, birds, and other critters.
