NOAA Teacher at Sea
Kaitlin Baird
Aboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow
September 4 – 20, 2012
Mission: Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey with NOAA’s North East Fisheries Science Center
Geographical Area: Atlantic Ocean from Cape May to Cape Hatteras
Date: August 19, 2012
Pre-cruise Personal Log
In a little over two weeks I am set to board NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow at the Newport Rhode Island dock on a NOAA Fisheries survey cruise as a part of NOAA’s Teacher at Sea program. My name is Kaitlin Baird, and I am a science educator at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences. At this U.S. based not-for-profit, I get to teach students from 2nd grade all the way up to my Road Scholar program. Many of my students come to visit the Institute from all over the world to learn more about the ocean around Bermuda. I have just finished up with 24 interns for the summer as a part of BIOS’ Ocean Academy and I am set for the next adventure!
I am originally from New Jersey where I grew up finding critters along the beaches of the Jersey shore. My mom always used to laugh when I tried to keep critters alive in the outdoor shower. I was one of those kids that was always in the water. Probably no big surprise that I went on to study and teach marine biology! I am looking forward to my critter cruise and even more so looking forward to learning new species of the Northern Atlantic.
Have a look at this NOAA map above.
Being in the Sargasso Sea in Bermuda, we are subtropical. We get a whole suite of coral reef, seagrass and mangrove species. You can see some photos of some critters I’ve spotted this summer!
I have a few goals for the cruise:
- Learn as much as possible from the scientists on the cruise
- Participate in taking and understanding data collected on the cruise
- Posting and taking photos of some of our critters surveyed on the cruise
- Explaining to my students what we are doing and why it’s important!
If there is anything you would like to learn more about as I travel, let me know in the “comments” section below!
Wish me luck, I’m headed North!
Hey Kaitlin!
Congrats on this A-MAZING opportunity!!! I saw BIOS’s fb post about your blog and I was all sorts of “OMG-ing”. You sure have come a long way since our days at RWU. I can’t wait to read about your exciting days at sea 🙂 Good luck and have fun “being a sponge”, as I call it (absorbing anything possible) lol.
Katie, this blog post is great! I’m so proud of all you’ve accomplished so far as a marine biologist and I know you will continue to do awesome things for science in the future. I hope you have fun exploring North Atlantic marine life aboard the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow and that you discover oceans of knowledge in the process! Safe travels! xx colleen
Found this while researching Sargasso Sea. Thanks! RH