GEOGRAPHY teacher George Pike certainly doesn't believe in leaving his work behind him after school hours.

For Gordon has won an Earthwatch Millennium Fellowship which will see him travelling to Lithuania next month to join a geographic expedition to study the effects of melting glaciers.

When he reaches the site in Lithuania, after meeting the rest of his expedition team in Sweden and journeying through Estonia and Latvia, he will become a research assistant-general dogsbody for academic scientists.

A married man with four children, Gordon became one of the first 100 teachers in Britain to win the Fellowship.

The Lowton High teacher said: "I have seen glaciers before and studied them at university so it won't be completely new, but I have been asked how I will cope with heavy work, digging, carrying rock samples about and so on. I have also been sent a considerable technical reading list to get through.

"It may sound as if this is a piece of research which has little relevance to real life, but this is far from the case. Everyone has heard of Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect, and started worrying about what could happen if the polar ice cap melts in the hotter sun. This is what happened about 12,000 years ago when a change in the climate melted the glaciers and they all started to shrink.

"If scientists can find out what exactly happened because of that change of climate, maybe we can take steps to get ready for what will happen with our own Global Warming. I am very much looking forward to it all and to telling anyone who will listen to me about it when I get back."

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