NOAA Teacher at Sea
Nick Lee
Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson
June 29 – July 20, 2024
Mission: Pollock Acoustic-Trawl Survey
Geographic Area of Cruise: Eastern Bering Sea
Date: June 21, 2024
Introduction:
Hello! My name is Nick Lee, and I am excited to be one of this year’s Teachers at Sea! I teach 11th/12th Grade Environmental Science and Computer Science at Codman Academy Charter Public School, located in Dorchester, MA (a neighborhood of Boston).
I love teaching Environmental Science, because I’m able to take students outside of the classroom on fieldwork (at Codman, we call academic field trips ‘fieldwork’). We have studied the trees in our schools microforest, visited local farms, and explored different parts of the Greater Boston coastline. This past year, we were fortunate to work with the Cohasset Center for Student Coastal Research, a partnership that allowed us to take students out on the water and collect samples in the intertidal zone.
My students even had the opportunity to build an ocean drifter, which helps scientists track currents and marine debris. A local fisherman helped us launch the drifter, and we’ve been tracking its movement off the coast of Massachusetts (you can find its current location here: https://studentdrifters.org/tracks/drift_stonehill_2024_1.html). I’ll hopefully be launching another drifter in the Eastern Bering Sea this summer, and next year’s students will be able to compare the paths the two drifters take.
I’m looking forward to learning more about marine science this summer, and I hope to bring back as much knowledge as possible for my students!
Science and Technology Log:
In a little over a week, I will be sailing aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson as part of the science team on a pollock survey. Just getting to NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson will be an adventure – I’ll be flying from Boston to Seattle, Seattle to Anchorage, and then Anchorage to Dutch Harbor!
I’ve already been in touch with two members of the science team: Abigail McCarthy and Robert Levine. Both were kind enough to send me some reading to learn about the ship’s mission – there’s a lot of new terms but I’m starting to get a better picture of what we’ll be doing!
We will be sailing on a Midwater Assessment and Conservation Engineering (MACE) survey, collecting data on primarily walleye (Alaska) pollock. Most of my job will be to help process the fish in the trawl catch, recording data like fish species, length, and age. The data we collect will help scientists learn more about the current pollock population in the Eastern Bering Sea, ultimately informing the quotas (limits) set for commercial fishing operations.
This process is crucial to prevent overfishing – in 2022 commercial fishermen caught over 2.7 billion pounds of Alaska pollock (valued at $316 million) from the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. (https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/alaska-pollock). While these numbers may seem high, careful management has kept commercial pollock fishing operations sustainable. In fact, NOAA calls US wild-caught Alaska Pollock a “smart seafood choice because it is sustainably managed and responsibly harvested under U.S. regulations” (https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/alaska-pollock/seafood).
I’m grateful for the opportunity to be a part of such important work for the future of our oceans and fisheries!
Personal Log:
I am originally from St. Louis, Missouri, far from the ocean. However, since I’ve been teaching environmental science in Boston, I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about our planet’s oceans and the importance of protecting them.
Last year, through the generous support of the Pat Cooke Foundation, I was able to travel to the Netherlands, where I spent two weeks working with a small-scale fishing company. There, I was able to catch wild oysters and sea bass, and participate in all steps of seafood production, from catching and processing fish to selling direct to consumers in restaurants and markets. I also learned how most fish we buy in supermarkets change hands many times, sometimes traveling across the world for days or even weeks before being purchased by the consumer. This experience has made me passionate about sustainable seafood – recently, I’ve been trying to buy only seafood local to Massachusetts and New England.
I’m excited to be back working with fish this summer, and I’m looking forward to learning more about sustainable fishing from the scientists and crew aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson.
Did You Know?
Many fish, birds, and mammals including Steller sea lions depend on Alaska pollock as a food source (https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/alaska-pollock/overview).