Seeing a 30 metre (110 ft) blue whale and its calf swimming side-by-side in the middle of the Atlantic is an experience I will never forget. I was on the Explorer between Greenland and Canada when the biggest animal on the globe touched the surface only few metres from the ship.

I had just finished school when I decided to take two gap years before going to university. A friend of mine told me about Students on Ice (SOI), an organisation which has been arranging educational tours to the Arctic and Antarctic regions for the past seven years. During my trip three-week trip to the Arctic I would be travelling from Iceland to Greenland and Canada working with environmentalists studying climate change.

Sometimes an expedition like this one can cause more damage than good but all the SOI teachers have been working in the region for many years in conjunction with the local people to protect the environment.

The expedition comprised eighty students aged 14-19 from around the world, together with scientists, environmentalists and educators. Through field-studies and lectures on the boat, we studied the environmental issues facing the region as well as participating in experiments and original research for the future.

I had paid more than £950 for the trip but on the first day in Iceland, my highest expectations were fulfilled. We used inflatable boats with an outboard motor (Zodiacs) to sail inside caves and around high cliffs to study the bird and sea life around the island. Later, we walked on an active volcano that once had covered a whole town, a bit like Pompeii. We also visited Surtsey, the newest island in the world, created by a volcanic eruption in 1963. After 12 years in the education system I finally felt that I could relate to what I had been learning - nature was my classroom.

One day we saw a thin polar bear lying in the sun on a rock. We managed to get very close to it - about 20 metres away - and everyone was able to take photographs of it. We were all surprised at how peaceful and quiet the bear was. Later, one of the scientists told us polar bear was starving and it looked so relaxed because it had no energy. This was a shocking experience and a stark example of how climate change has affected the lifestyle of polar bears.

Even so, in a region with many polar bears, safety is an issue and rifles were carried at all times.

On the two-day trip by boat from Iceland to Greenland we spotted whales every single day. Every kind from killer whales to the classic “Moby Dicks” (Great White Whale) and, of course, the huge blue whales.

We experienced the culture in Greenland, which still includes kayaking and traditional seal hunting. I tasted raw whale, dried seal and musk ox and in Nunavut (Canada) we watched traditional singing and dancing spoke with some of the local elders. They had been living there for more than 60 years and had seen how the environment around them had changed.

I was lucky to go there during the summer period when the sun is up most of the time, which meant we had long days to discover the nature. It was less cold than I expected and I didn’t have to buy any special Arctic clothes to be a part of the trip. It happened more than once that I jumped in the ocean and we even spent a day relaxing in hot springs in the south of Greenland.

There are many experiences from this trip I would never forget, seeing the blue whales, being in a Zodiac next to a swimming polar bear, photographing walruses and seals in their natural environment and walking to the Arctic circle in Canada are all amazing adventures that a gap year gave me.

SOI arrange two trips every year; one to the Arctic Region and one to Antarctica. The students are mostly from Canada and the United States but everyone can participate, however you are expected to do some fundraising before to pay for the trips. Details on: studentsonice.com

Times recommends

• Minister sacked over fake degree
• Student grant blunder will hit 80,000 families
• Half of Cambridge students admit cheating