Christina Peters

July 20, 2013August 19, 2021

Christina Peters: Update on Our Plankton Survey, July 16, 2013

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Chris Peters
Onboard NOAA Ship Oregon II
July 10 – 19, 2013

Weather and Location:
Time: 21:24 Greenwich Mean Time (5:24 p.m. in Rockville, MD)
Latitude: 29.1970
Longitude: -85.9904
Speed (knots): 3.00
Water temperature: 28.10 degrees Celsius
Salinity (PSU = Practical Salinity Units): 34.07
Air temperature: 29.00 degrees Celsius
Relative Humidity: 68%
Wind Speed (knots): 17.15
Barometric Pressure (mb): 1018.96
Depth (m) = 187.2

As you can see if you have been following the Ship Tracker website, we have been making our way back towards Pascagoula. We still have some stations to work, and won’t be reaching the dock until Friday morning, but we will continue to head in that direction. The weather has gotten a bit windier, with much larger swells over the last couple of days. This has made collecting the plankton even more interesting. With the wind frequently above twenty knots, handling the equipment becomes much more dangerous. Some procedures need to be changed a bit for the sake of safety. Luckily, the deck crew, Tim, James, and Chuck, are on top of things. They are pretty funny to work with, too!

Our deck crew – James, Tim (chief boatswain), and Chuck

Science and Technology Log

Water Titrations to Check Cissolved Oxygen Levels

The plankton stations have continued, with the biggest changes being how much sargassum (seaweed) we have needed to rinse out and go through, and the different kinds of tiny animal life we have observed. I mentioned in an earlier blog that the scientists must periodically do water titrations to verify that the readings taken from the CTD are correct and nothing is malfunctioning. I had an opportunity to perform some real chemistry as Kim Johnson, the chief scientist, walked me through the water titration steps.

First we had to collect the water samples from the CTD. Remember, we are testing the oxygen levels, so it is important to collect the water samples without allowing bubbles to form, which might add oxygen to the sample. You would be surprised at how hard this is! A flexible tube is attached to one of the three Niskin Bottles on the CTD tank, and before any water is put into the jars, all of the air bubbles in the tube must be squeezed out. This is an art! Then the water can be transferred to the jars through the tube, holding the end of the tube against the side of the beaker to avoid making bubbles. The stoppers are then gently put into the glass jars, again to avoid the addition of oxygen to the samples. It is important to keep the water samples from getting too hot if you are not going to do the titrations right away. Can you think of why heat might create a problem when doing a titration? Also, we test three samples. Why do you think testing three beakers is important?

Now we are ready to start the mad chemist part! The chemicals used, and their amounts, are very specific, and the directions are posted in the lab so that you can always check your memory. First, two milliliters of manganous sulfate is added to each sample. The stopper is replaced after adding each substance, and the jars are turned upside down and back several times to mix the solution. The second substance added is two milliliters of azide-iodide solution. After the solution is gently mixed, the jars need to stand for ten to twenty minutes. When you come back after twenty minutes, you will see that there is a cloudy substance in each jar. This first part of the process causes the chemical bond between the hydrogen and the oxygen to break, and the oxygen forms new bonds with the added chemicals.

Adding chemicals — Using the pipettes to add the chemicals to the water

After initial chemicals are added — A cloudy substance forms after the manganous sulfate and azide-iodide are added and mixed.

At this point, the oxygen is fixed and we don’t need to worry about introducing more oxygen to the samples. Next, we added two milliliters of sulfuric acid to each jar. This must be done very carefully because sulfuric acid is very harmful. However, once it is added, the sulfuric acid is neutralized and the solution in the sample jars is not harmful. (Remember the acid/neutral/base tests we did in class with lemon juice, vinegar, and Alka Seltzer, using a pH scale?)

Sulfuric acid — The sulfuric acid changes the color, and after mixing, causes the cloudiness to disappear.

Now we have a yellowish liquid and I will be adding phenylarsine oxide, drop by drop. This is the titration part. When the color turns clear, we can look at how much phenylarsine oxide was needed and that will tell us how much dissolved oxygen was present in the sample. This new chemical will bond with the oxygen molecules and cause a color change. However, because the change from yellow is hard to see, I added one milliliter of a starch solution for the only purpose of turning the sample blue. This way the color change back to clear is easier to see.

Starch is added — Notice the color change after the starch is added (the blue beaker).

The sample is poured into a wide-mouthed beaker and a magnetic stirrer is added to the beaker. This is a small, magnetic bar that spins when it is on the metal stand. Drops of the phenylarsine oxide are allowed to slowly drip from a burette into the sample. A burette is a very tall, thin, glass pipe-like container that allows easy adjustment of the flow of liquid, and allows for easy reading of very small amounts.

Titration 1 — The burette is allowing the phenylarsine oxide to mix with the water solution, one drop at a time.

Once the sample starts to lose its color, you know you are close. One or two more drops and you will shut the valve on the burette and read the amount that was mixed into the sample.

Titration 2 — Notice the color change towards the end of the titration.

Titration complete — Once the color change is complete, the titration is finished, and the burette is read for the dissolved oxygen content.

My samples showed dissolved oxygen amounts of 6.4, 6.5, and 6.5 milligrams per liter. The CTD showed dissolved oxygen of 6.4 mg/l. Since our results were very close, we are confident that the CTD is working well.

Remember, levels below 2% are considered hypoxic. 6.4% is a very healthy dissolved oxygen reading. This is what we expect as we move further from developed land, but it is still reassuring to see the healthy levels.

Later I tried another titration without supervision and found consistent readings of 4.9 mg/ mg/l oxygen. However the CTD reading was 4.35 mg/l. I guess I need more practice!

Buoy Rescue Mission

Yesterday we had the opportunity to participate in a buoy rescue mission. Another organization had deployed a wave buoy, or a wave runner, in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico that had been damaged, and was no longer able to give correct readings on things like current and wave height. We were in the area, and agreed to retrieve the buoy. As we got closer to the GPS signal, we spotted a large orange ball with an eight foot (about) antenna sticking out of it. Oregon II’s small motor boat was launched and we set about collecting the buoy.

As we reached it, the deck crew and the CO noticed some things about the buoy that were inconsistent with the description.

After making a telephone call, the CO told the crew to come back to the ship. We had come across the wrong buoy! Off we went in search of the correct one, which we found about half a mile away. This one looked more like a surfboard and was fairly easy to get aboard the ship, using the crane. That mission was accomplished, but we all marveled at the odds of finding two wave buoys within half a mile of each other in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico!

Weather buoy rescue — Using the crane to lift the wave runner onto the deck.

Chuck Godwin and Officer Matt , who helped rescue the wave runner — Chuck Godwin and LTJG Matthew Griffin, who helped rescue the wave runner

Both parts of the wave runner — The part of the wave runner that looks like a surfboard sits on top of the water and has solar panels. It is attached to the slatted part that acts as a glider, and uses wave energy as it rises and falls to propel the board through the water.

Personal Log

A Week at Sea

While I am still enjoying the cruise and the work, I have had a few days of queasiness. Taking the seasick medicine helps a lot, so I am sticking with that for a few days. Nights have been fine, and the rocking of the ship really is like being rocked in a cradle. I hope I’ll be able to sleep when I am in a stationary bed back home!

Being on a cruise on a small ship brings me back to my days of living in a college dormitory. You are living in very close quarters, eating every meal together, spending large amounts of time together, and really getting to know the people who are on your watch. I have had a great group to work with – people with a lot of knowledge, and great senses of humor! Victoria, a college intern, has been a newbie with me. We have learned a lot from the other scientists, Andre and Joey, on our watch, as well as from our chief scientist, Kimberley Johnson. Tim, James, and Chuck are the deckhands on our watch, and they do most of the heavy work, like lifting the equipment and running the J frame, winches and cranes. Sometimes we are working with the equipment for forty-five minutes at a time. The deckhands, while very serious about safety, keep us laughing the entire time. As I am finishing this entry, we are heading towards home. It will be nice to be on land again, but I will also miss the many different personalities I was lucky enough to get to know.

Did You Know?

The Gulf of Mexico covers an area that is about 615,000 square miles.

An area named “Sigsbee Deep” is located in the southwestern part of the Gulf. It is more than 300 miles long and more than 14,383 feet deep at its deepest point. It is often referred to as the “Grand Canyon under the sea”.

The Gulf’s coastal wetlands cover over five million acres, which is an area equal to about one-half of the area of the U.S. It is the home to twenty-four endangered and threatened species and critical habitats.

It is estimated that 50% of the Gulf’s inland and coastal wetlands have been lost and that up to 80% of the Gulf’s sea grasses have been lost in some areas. The continual loss of wetlands (about a football field a year) around the Mississippi Delta, a large land area near where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico, changes how hurricanes impact the coast of the Gulf. With fewer wetlands to absorb the impact of the hurricane, the hurricanes hit the populated areas with much greater force.

For more facts about the Gulf of Mexico, visit http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120516_okeanusexplorer.html or

www.habitat.noaa.gov/media/news/pdf/gulf-of-mexico-review_final.pdf‎

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you will check back in a few days for an update!

July 16, 2013August 19, 2021

Christina Peters: Finding Plankton on Oregon II, July 13, 2013

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Chris Peters
Onboard NOAA Ship Oregon II
July 10 – 19, 2013

Mission: SEAMAP Summer Groundfish Survey
Geographic Area of Cruise: Gulf of Mexico, leaving from Pascagoula, MS
Date: July 13, 2013

Weather and Location:
Time: 23:24 Greenwich Mean Time (7:24 p.m. in Rockville, MD)
Latitude: 25.5340
Longitude: -82.0215
Speed (knots): 9.30
Water temperature: 28.90 degrees Celsius
Salinity (PSU = Practical Salinity Units): 35.38
Air temperature: 31.20 degrees Celsius
Relative Humidity: 65%
Wind Speed (knots): 8.92
Barometric Pressure (mb): 1013.34
Depth (m) = 19.20

Science and Technology Log

Our Mission

In my introduction I explained that SEAMAP is a state, federal, and university program. In fact, there is a managing unit called the SEAMAP– Gulf Subcommittee of the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Technical Coordinating Committee who manages the activities and operations, including collecting samples and interpreting data, of the Gulf participants, including the Mississippi Laboratory of NOAA and the states of Louisiana, Mississippi,Texas, Alabama, and Florida, as well as certain universities. Parts of the program include bottom trawls, CTD deployment, and Bongo and Neuston tows. The bottom trawls involve towing nets at randomly selected spots for ten to thirty minutes. The sea life caught in the nets, normally shrimp and other animals that live at the bottom of the Gulf, are sorted, identified and measured. All of the data is recorded and helps to determine where the fish and shrimp are, and how much exists in the Gulf. Because the NOAA Laboratory and the states have worked so well together on this project, most of the trawls were completed on earlier legs of the trip and on the state boats. We have had opportunities, though, to observe and identify some of the fish from an earlier leg that had been put on ice. We’ll come back to that process a bit later.

The first twenty-four hours underway were spent heading to our first station, off the southwest coast of Florida. We have spent much of our time on this leg of the trip completing plankton collections. My students should remember that plankton includes small and microscopic (too small to see with only your eyes) organisms. The organisms may be animals, plants and plant-like organisms, or bacteria. The plankton found in the water can tell what the animal population looks like, or will look like if the conditions of the water do not change too much. Plankton is also a source of food for certain animals, so looking at plankton can give us information about whether enough of a food source is present for those animals. The purpose of the Bongo and Neuston tows is to collect plankton. Before we do those tows at each station, however, we deploy the CTD to collect some important information.

Bringing in the CTD — A scientist and deckhand help bring in the CTD

Taking water samples from the CTD — The chief scientist, Kim Johnson, takes water samples from the CTD to verify it’s dissolved oxygen readings.

CTD stands for Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth. The machine collects data in those areas, as well as other data. The conductivity data tells how much salt (salinity) is in the water because the amount of salt affects how well the water will conduct (allow to pass through) electricity. The CTD also measures the oxygen content of the water. Remember learning about algae bloom in the Chesapeake Bay, and how the algae sucks up all of the oxygen, leaving the plants and animals in the area to die? When a body of water has an unhealthy level of oxygen, it is called hypoxic. Scientists are worried about the same kind of thing happening in the Gulf of Mexico, so determining the oxygen content in the water provides important information. In the stations we have tested so far, the oxygen content has been healthy. However, we have been far from land and much closer to where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Gulf. To learn more about hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, visit NOAA’s hypoxia page. Don’t forget to click on the links at the bottom that will take you to descriptions of the problems and causes of hypoxia in the Gulf.

After bringing the CTD back onto the deck, it is time to start a Neuston tow. The Neuston net is very fine, and attaches to a one meter by two meter frame at the top. The net gets narrower, and attaches to a “cod end”, a plastic cylinder with screened openings, at the bottom. This is hoisted out of the boat and into the water by a crane. It takes several people to launch the Neuston, as the frame is heavy, and it can be hard to manage in the wind.

Neuston net before deployment — The Neuston net is tied down to the boat until it is ready to be deployed.

The Neuston is pulled through the water, with about a foot above the surface, and the rest below. The purpose is to collect plankton on or near the surface of the water. Since sargassum, or seaweed, often floats on the surface of the water, sometimes the Neuston collects a lot of that. We continue to tow the net for ten minutes, and then retrieve it into the boat, again using the crane. While we did not do trawls and pull in large fish, we did see different kinds of baby fish at almost every station.

The Neuston net is dragged at the top of the water for five to ten minutes

The Bongo contains two 61 centimeter, circular, sturdy plastic frames, to which fine nets are attached. These nets also narrow to a small area, to which cod ends are attached. The Bongos are lowered off the port side by using the J frame. The bongos are towed from the surface to the bottom, but no deeper than 200 meters. The bongo also has the flowmeters on it to calculate how much water passes through the net. The sample is used to estimate the populations, number, and location of animals in parts of the Gulf. The Bongo also has instruments attached to it that measure temperature, salinity (salt), and depth. In addition, the bongos have flowmeters attached to calculate how much water passes through the nets.

The Bongo nets must be rinsed down before being brought into to boat to make sure no plankton is stuck at the top of the nets.

These are complicated tools, and some of the instruments are electronic. If the instruments are not working correctly, the scientists and engineers must have a back-up plan. In fact, at one station, the Bongo instruments were not giving accurate readings when the head of the watch (the scientist in charge) looked at the readings from inside. The back-up plan was for the deckhands to use less accurate depth finding instruments when lowering the Bongo. This can sometimes present a problem because if the instruments are off, and the Bongo drags on the bottom, a lot of mud can end up in the sample. Fortunately, a little troubleshooting, in the form of tightening some connections, solved the problem. Sometimes it’s easy to forget to check the obvious!

Once the Neuston and Bongo are up, we can detach the cod ends, and get to work preserving the plankton samples. The plankton from the Neuston, and from each of the Bongo cod ends, are preserved and stored separately. The Neuston and right Bongo plankton are rinsed through a very fine sieve with a chemical solution that is mostly ethanol, and then poured through a funnel into a jar, which is finally filled with the ethanol solution. The left Bongo plankton is handled similarly, but instead of being stored in ethanol, it is stored in salt water from the Gulf, and a small amount of formalin. Formalin contains a small amount of formaldehyde, and is used to preserve tissues. It is a toxic chemical that is harmful to humans, and must be handled very carefully, always using gloves. The samples are later sent to various laboratories to be sorted and counted. In addition to providing information about amount and location of different species, scientists can also use the preserved plankton to determine the age, as specific as the number of days old, and genetics of the baby sea animal. The formalin helps preserve the otoliths a LOT better, where the ethanol helps preserve the tissue and/or DNA better. The otolith is part of the inner ear of the animal and is the part that is used to determine age.

Work station at the stern of the boat — The work station at the stern of Oregon II is where we rinse the plankton and add the chemicals for preservation.

Rinsing the plankton — Sometimes we have to remove jellyfish from our samples. The plankton must be rinsed off the jellyfish before counting and discarding them.

With stations normally being about three hours apart, it would seem like we should have a lot of down time. However, when there is a lot of sargassum in the Neuston, it must be rinsed to try to get the plankton out of it. This can take quite a long time. In addition, sometimes we do get small fish or other animals that need to be sorted, counted, measured and weighed.

A pipe fish from one of the Neuston samples. What does it remind you of?

Plankton sample — This is a plankton sample from a Neuston tow after it has been preserved in ethanol.

Don’t forget to track our progress by visiting http://shiptracker.noaa.gov/shiptracker.html and choosing Oregon II. While you are there, don’t forget to check out the different types of maps available for tracking Oregon II. Look in the upper left-hand corner (Streets, Topo, Imagery, NOAA Nautical Charts, and Weather).

Personal Log

Settling in and enjoying the ride

The first three days of the trip had us motoring through incredibly calm waters and sunny days. Some of the veteran crew members commented that they had never seen the Gulf so calm. As we traveled further from Pascagoula, the water started getting bluer and bluer. It is hard to describe the deep blue that we sailed through and the camera just doesn’t seem to capture it. As we left the waters around Pascagoula, we saw many large ships, possible oil tankers, and quite a few oil rigs. However, once we passed them, we’ve barely seen another boat. It is something to look out from the bow of the boat and see nothing but water in every direction.

As promised, the food on board is delicious. The cooks take great pride in the food they serve, and there are always choices at every meal. We’ve had beef tenderloin, veal parmesan, omelets, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, pasta, Mexican, chocolate custard pie, cookies, pecan pie – all homemade! The galley is also well-stocked with snacks. Meals are served on a strict schedule – about an hour and a half for each meal. However, if you know you will miss a meal, the cooks are happy to set some food aside for you, nicely wrapped in the refrigerator. Luckily for me, I have the day shift, and if I miss a meal, it is normally breakfast.

Everyone on the ship has been very encouraging and helpful. Some of the guys did a dive and brought me back some interesting shells to share with my students. The other scientists have been incredibly patient and helpful. Kim, the chief scientist, is a great teacher and is always looking for opportunities for me to learn something new, or practice something I just learned!

Did you know?

The starboard side of the ship is the right side, and the port side is the left side. Starboard comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word, “steorbord” because the steering oar was on the right side of the boat. Because of this, the ship would pull up to the dock, or port, on the left side. This would avoid damaging the steering oar.

Questions for my students:

What unit of measurement do you think we use to measure the small fish found in the Neuston and Bongo tows?

Can you think of any sea animals that use plankton as their main source of food? It is okay to research this before you answer!

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you will check back in a few days for an update!

July 15, 2013August 19, 2021

Christina Peters: Casting Off with Oregon II, July 11, 2013

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Chris Peters
Onboard NOAA Ship Oregon II
July 10 – 19, 2013

Mission: SEAMAP Summer Groundfish Survey
Geographic Area of Cruise: Gulf of Mexico, leaving from Pascagoula, MS
Date: July 11, 2013

Weather and Location:
Time: 17:24 Greenwich Mean Time (1:24 p.m. in Rockville, MD)
Latitude: 28.6057
Longitude: -85.4277
Speed (knots): 9.70
Water temperature: 28.30 degrees Celsius
Salinity (PSU = Practical Salinity Units): 33.14
Air temperature: 30.80 degrees Celsius
Relative Humidity: 64%
Wind Speed (knots): 6.55
Barometric Pressure (mb = millibars): 1015.13
Depth (m) = 172.50

Science and Technology Log

Weather and Location Vocabulary

Some of the weather and location terms will be unfamiliar to you, so I will give some explanation and background.

Latitude: imaginary lines that run horizontally (think of the horizon) on a map or globe and are sometimes called parallels because they are always the same distance from each other. To remember which direction the lines run, think of the rungs of a ladder (ladder-tude). They begin at zero at the equator and continue to 90 degrees at each pole. Each degree is equivalent to about 69 miles.

Longitude: imaginary that run vertically. They are also called meridians. Longitude lines are not parallel because they meet at the north and south poles. Zero degrees longitude is found at Greenwich, England, and the meridians meet at 180 degrees in the Pacific Ocean and the International Date Line.

Latitude and Longitude — Latitudes are also called parallels and are horizontal. Longitudes are also called meridians and are vertical.
Photo credit to http://www.geographyalltheway.com/ks3_geography/
maps_atlases/longitude_latitude.htm

Knots: another way to measure speed, like miles-per-hour, often used by mariners. It is equal to one nautical mile, 2,000 yards, and approximately 1.151 mph. The word knots dates back to the days when sailors would toss a log, attached to a rope knotted at regular intervals, off the stern of a ship. The sailors would count the number of knots that passed through their hands in a certain period of time, and that number was used to express the ship’s speed. Students (and parents) who have visited St. Mary’s City have seen exactly how this works!

Celsius: a way to measure temperature. The freezing point for Celsius is 0 degrees, and the boiling point is 100 degrees. Alternatively, the freezing point for Fahrenheit is 32 degrees, while the boiling point is 212 degrees. Celsius can be converted to Fahrenheit by multiplying the starting degrees Celsius by 9, then dividing that number by 5. The last step is to add 32, and your answer is the equivalent degrees in Fahrenheit.

Salinity: the amount of dissolved salt in the water. It is measured in PSU, which stands for Practical Salinity Units. Ocean water normally is made up of 3.5% salt, and contains 35 PSUs. The salinity of the water affects the electrical conductivity of the water (how well electricity can pass through water).

About the Oregon II

Oregon II is forty-six years old, having been launched in February 1967. It is 170 feet long and 34 feet wide, with a welded steel hull. Oregon II weighs 703 tons with all of its equipment on board. The ship has a cruising speed of 12 knots, and is capable of traveling 7,810 nautical miles, and staying out for 33 days. It was built for NOAA as a science ship and contains an oceanographic wet lab, a specimen lab, an instrumentation lab, and a hydrographic lab. With sleeping space for 31 people, up to twelve are usually scientists. Scientists include Teachers at Sea, college student volunteers, interns, and other volunteers. To learn more about the ship, visit the Oregon II website. You may also track our progress by visiting http://shiptracker.noaa.gov/shiptracker.html and choosing Oregon II.

Personal Log

Getting ready for departure

I arrived in the small town of Pascagoula, Mississippi on Monday night. On Tuesday morning I received an email from Kim, the chief scientist, letting me know that a welcome aboard meeting was scheduled for 12:30 the next day, but that a crucial piece of equipment, the J frame, was broken and we would be unable to leave before it was fixed. Either way, I was going to “check in” to my cabin on the ship on Tuesday afternoon, and hope our departure would not be delayed.

The J Frame on the dock, waiting to be repaired

Repaired J Frame — The J Frame, in good working order

I met one of the scientists, Alonzo, on Tuesday afternoon and he gave me a tour of Oregon II, as well as NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) National Marine Fisheries Service, Pascagoula Lab. I met many people, from the unit leader of the trawl surveys, to the receptionists, who do much more than answer telephones. There were the plankton scientists, the marine mammal specialists, and the seafood inspection scientists, to name a few. The NOAA building was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina several years ago. After working out of trailers for about four years, the staff in Pascagoula moved into a beautiful new building overlooking The Pascagoula River.

The ship, though, was of even greater interest to me, since I would be spending ten days aboard her. As we approached the gangplank, I saw that the J frame, normally attached to the side of the ship, was dismantled on the dock. Things were not looking too hopeful. In spite of that, I was excited to see the rest of the ship. We saw the bridge, where the ship’s master, also referred to as the commanding officer (CO), and the NOAA Corps officers who pilot the ship spend a lot of time. The stern of the boat (the rear) is where much of the science work is done. The outriggers, a pair, sit high up on the ship, towards the back, and can be extended out to the sides for the groundfish collection. As we walked inside from the stern, we saw the wet lab, where fish and sea life are measured and sorted, and the dry lab, where much of the data is recorded.

Certain personnel onboard are important enough to have a private cabin (the master and the chief scientist, for example). Most of us, however, share a cabin with one other person, usually someone who works an opposite shift. For example, I am working the noon to midnight shift, and my roommate works the midnight to noon shift. This works to give us each a little bit of privacy and quiet while we are trying to sleep. As you can see, the beds are like little nooks built into the walls, and have heavy curtains to keep the light out if you are sleeping. There is actually plenty of storage space for our clothes. As you might expect, everything that opens has a hook or a locking mechanism on it. When the seas are rough, you don’t want drawers flying open!

A room on Oregon II — I share this room with a volunteer scientist. I work from noon to midnight, and she works from midnight to noon.

Those of you who know me won’t be surprised that one of my favorite spots onboard is the galley! It only seats twelve, so with twenty-nine people onboard, the general policy is to “eat it and beat it”. There is a “chief steward” and a “second cook”, who make delicious meals and keep the galley stocked with snacks! Of course they do much more than that.

Wednesday morning there was much to do to be prepared for departure. Imagine going on a vacation to the beach for a week, but being unable to make a trip to the grocery store, drug store, mall, or even the doctor if someone gets sick. You must think of everything you need for ten days and bring it with you. The galley had to be stocked, as well as all paper products needed in other areas of the ship. The repaired (we hoped) J frame had to be re-installed, everyone who had not yet boarded and settled in had to arrive, cars had to be moved and people shuttled back, science materials had to be loaded and stored, and many other little things had to be done.

At 12:30 p.m. we met in the crew’s lounge for a welcome aboard meeting, still assuming an on-time departure. The J frame had been installed and was being tested. At that time I met the other scientists, volunteers, and an intern. At 2:00 we all went out to the well of the boat to wave to those seeing us off, and we actually started to slowly pull away from the dock a little after 2:30. The tropical storm, Chantal, was at the back of the minds of many of us, and we would be heading in her direction. I knew, though, that if the storm looked like a problem, we would find a safe place to wait her out. We were on a NOAA ship, after all.

Safety First

Abandon ship suit — I am wearing my survival (or gumby) suit. It is a flotation device and keeps you warm, too.

Emergency Escape Breathing Device — These are found in each cabin. They provide at least ten minutes of air in the event of a fire or other emergency.

Did you know?

Did you know that the bridge uses sonar, radar, AIS (Automatic Identification System), GPS, a magnetic compass, and electronic and paper charts to navigate to new locations? Charts are similar to maps, but include much more information such as the contours of the land below the water, obstructions in the water, buoys, oil rigs, rocks, and shoals.

Questions for my students:

If the Oregon II is 170 feet long, about how many meters long is it?

If the water temperature is 28 degrees Celsius, what is the temperature measured in Fahrenheit?

We will be collecting plankton on this leg of the mission. How do you think we will preserve the plankton in order to get it back to the scientists?

What questions do you have for me? I’ll do my best to answer them in my next blog entry.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you will check back in a few days for an update!

July 9, 2013August 19, 2021

Christina Peters: Introduction, July 3, 2013

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Chris Peters
Onboard NOAA Ship Oregon II
July 10 – 19, 2013

Mission: SEAMAP Summer Groundfish Survey
Geographic Area of Cruise: Gulf of Mexico, leaving from Pascagoula, MS
Date: July 3, 2013

Welcome to my NOAA blog!

A little about my background…

I am Christina (Chris) Peters, from Farmland Elementary School in Rockville, Maryland. I have been a fourth grade teacher at Farmland for the past eight years, after trying out some other careers. While my past teaching has included all subjects, I am excited to get to focus more on science this coming year as my team will be departmentalizing and I will be teaching two classes of science. We spend half the school year learning about life sciences and the environment.

I grew up only a few miles from where I teach today, and was the third of ten children in my family. My father loved to fish and used to take us fishing, in turns of course, in his seventeen foot motor boat. Most often we fished in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of New Jersey, where my family frequently visited. We also fished in the Chesapeake Bay on occasion. One of my favorite summer meals was fresh bluefish. These experiences taught me to love the water, and to care about protecting that environment.

My father and I after a fishing trip. I was about ten, the same age as many of my students.

In addition to learning about and participating in the SEAMAP Summer Groundfish Survey, I will be learning something else completely new to me – how to blog! While I consider myself pretty technologically informed, I am new to blogging and am very excited, and a little nervous, about writing my own blog describing my Teacher at Sea experience.

Our mission on Oregon II

I will be flying to Mississippi next week and will be joining the crew of Oregon II on July 10 to participate in the SEAMAP Summer Groundfish Survey. To see pictures of the Oregon II, and to learn more about the ship, you can visit the website that describes details of the ship, as well as the different past and present projects for which Oregon II has been used. We will be departing from Pascagoula, Mississippi and measuring data on groundfish in the Gulf of Mexico. The Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP) is a state/federal program designed to collect, manage and disseminate fishery-independent data in the southeastern U.S. I am excited to learn more about how the scientists and crew actually complete the surveys and record data. One of my goals is to pass along what I learn to everyone who reads my blog.

Furthermore, while the Groundfish Survey is the mission of the scientists and crew onboard Oregon II, I will have an additional goal of learning all about the jobs of the crew, and sharing much of that information with the readers of my blog. Hopefully, when you read about these exciting and important careers, many of you will consider the possibility of pursuing one similar to those described.

To all my upcoming fourth grade students, I am looking forward to adapting the data collection tools I learn about to our science activities in the coming year. I hope my past students will visit my blog and think about connections they can make to our fourth grade science units where we created and observed our own model ecosystems.

See you at sea!