Steven Frantz: Introduction, July 23, 2012

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Steven Frantz
Aboard NOAA Ship Oregon II
July 27 – August 8, 2012

Mission: Longline Shark Tagging Survey
Geographic area of cruise:  Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic off the east coat of Florida.
Date:  July 23, 2012

Introduction

Hello! My name is Steven Frantz and I am from the “Buckeye State” of Ohio. OH—IO! I teach 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade science classes at Roswell Kent Middle School in Akron, Ohio.

As you can see with this Google Earth view, for being a school in the city, there is quite a bit of land around the school. In addition to a ¼ mile track, two baseball fields, and a football field we also have an outdoor classroom. If you look between the two square shaped parts of the building on the west side you will see two very small squares. They are two math patios in our outdoor classroom. This past year our outdoor classroom was recognized by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources as a Wild Ohio School Site. It is also a monarch butterfly way station, has a tall-grass prairie, pond, bird feeders, and even has a “hidden” geocache. If you are interested in looking for our geocache, we are listed as Scientists in Progress.

There are many things Akron is famous for:

1. The Goodyear Blimp and the HUGE blimp hanger. The hanger is the largest building in the world without any internal support. It is so big it even has its own weather! Or so we are told!
2. The old Quaker Oats factory has been turned into a hotel. The rooms are very unique in that they are round. This is because they used to be silos for storing grain.
3. The All-American Soap Box Derby is held every year in Akron, Ohio. Maybe you have seen the movie 25 Hill about the Soap Box Derby. This past year we built our first Soap Box Derby car and raced it in the Gravity Challenge. We ended up winning the first two heats, but lost the third heat. If you are ever in Akron, go to the top of Derby Hill and look down. And then imagine going down the hill in a very small car.

Our students enjoy showing, discussing, and sharing their science research projects at events such as the Bioinnovations BEST Medical Science Fair, Akron, Ohio; Intel Northeast Ohio Science and Engineering Fair, Cleveland, Ohio; AmericaView Fall Technical Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio; the SATELLITES Geospatial Technology Conference, Toledo, Ohio; and the GLOBE Program Annual Partner Meeting this year in Minnesota. If our students do well enough they qualify to go on to district or state competitions. We even had a group of students go to the GLOBE Program Learning Experience in Cape Town, South Africa!

There are many more exciting things our students do at Roswell Kent Middle School. I could go on and on for a very long time telling everyone about them. I can’t wait to be able to share my Teacher At Sea experience with them. I will be on the NOAA Ship Oregon II research ship in the Gulf of Mexico. This will be her 300^th mission! While on this milestone mission we will be doing a longline survey studying sharks. Thanks for following along with my blog!