LONDON (Reuters) - Adventurer Robert Swan sets sail on a polar expedition next week to launch what he says is the world’s first online education center in Antarctica that will offer children a real-time glimpse of life on the ice.

Adventurer Robert Swan in an undated photo. Swan sets sail on a polar expedition next week to launch what he says is the world's first online education center in Antarctica that will offer children a real-time glimpse of life on the ice. REUTERS/RobertSwan.org/Handout

Swan, who was the first person to walk unassisted to both the North and South poles, hopes to use the small center, built on a Russian base on King George Island, to teach children about climate change and what they can do to protect the planet.

“The last great exploration on earth is to survive on it,” Swan, 50, told Reuters in an interview in London before he departed on the trip. “We have got to find the heroines and heroes of that exploration.”

The unmanned base, measuring 40 feet by 10 feet, is built from recyclable material and runs on wind and solar power. Fitted with a camera on the roof, it will beam live images of its surroundings to a Web site that also offers educational material for teachers to use in class.

“It is the most fantastically cool door-opener for kids to feel inspired,” said Swan, who himself fell in love with Antarctica after seeing a film about it when he was 11.

He believes actual images of the snow-capped terrain coupled with messages about how climate change is affecting Antarctica will encourage children to take a more active interest.

OZONE HOLE

Swan has experienced the effect of global warming first-hand. His eye color altered permanently from dark to light blue after walking through a hole in the ozone layer during his trek to the South Pole that ended in January 1986.

Three years later he almost died while walking to the North Pole when the icecap he was on, which was supposed to be frozen until August, started to melt four months early.

Such experiences inspired Swan to dedicate his life to continuing the work of Peter Scott, son of the ill-fated explorer Robert Falcon Scott, and France’s Jacques Cousteau in helping to preserve Antarctica. His focus is to ensure a global treaty safe-guarding the continent is renewed in 2041.

“The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the places on earth that is showing the most change. The weather is definitely warmer than it used to be 10 years ago and it rains more,” Swan said.

This year is of particular importance because it is International Polar Year. The two year study of the effects of global warming at the poles starts next month involving scientists from around the world in the first co-ordinated probe in half a century of the ice-bound ends of the earth.

One estimate says if the Greenland ice sheet -- the second biggest after Antarctica -- melts completely, sea levels will rise by seven meters and drown vast areas of the world.

But that is nothing compared with the estimated 200 meters that sea levels will rise if all the Antarctic ice melts in the coming thousands of years.

One of a number of awareness-raising initiatives Swan heads is the Inspire Antarctica Expedition. Each year he leads a group of teachers, students and representatives from corporate sponsors to the continent.

A main aim of the trips, run since 2003, has been to build the education base in cooperation with the Russian government.

Inspire Antarctic Expedition 5 -- operated by 2041, Swan’s not-for-profit firm, and his charity, the Robert Swan Foundation -- begins on Saturday when an international team of about 60 people gather in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world.

They set sail for Antarctica on February 21, where Swan will open the education base before returning on March 3. Images and information from the base can be seen on www.2041.com.