“Inside every good scientist is a curious kid. ” —Ms. Frizzle
Ms. Frizzle takes her class to the Ocean. Illustration by Bruce Degan via Scholastic Inc.
Personal Log
I am home. The floors have stopped swaying, my seabag is unpacked and the fish scales are washed from my boots. I have had time to rest and reflect. Looking over my endless photographs of indescribable landscapes, fascinating animal life and the hardworking but always enthusiastic crew, it would be easy to be wistful, sad that the journey all went by in the blink of an eye. But the thing is, it’s not over. The journey was never just about me, I was assigned this adventure to be the eyes and ears of my students.
I love the Magic School Bus series. For some, it’s unclear whether Ms. Fizzle’s class actually goes to all those incredible places or if their trips have only been imagined. But I know Ms. Frizzle’s secret, she is an extraordinary teacher. Her lessons are so engaging, so powerful, that her class feels transported to those unbelievable locations making lessons real, relatable and meaningful. And that is NOAA’s charge for their Teachers At Sea.
The NOAA Teacher at Sea program provides the adventures, we the teachers, go home to take our students back to these magical places and exciting experiences. It’s no small task, but one I take on with great seriousness and excitement. I want my students to feel the wind and fog blowing in across Dutch Harbor. I want them to puzzle over colorful echograms searching for fish. I want them to measure, weigh and record pollock and jellyfish splashed across the culling board. I want them to envision themselves as NOAA officers, or engineers, or scientists. But most of all, I want them to care deeply about the health and well-being of the world’s oceans. So I am frantically writing lessons, building hands-on activities and creating project based STEM challenges in hope that my students will feel like they too have been to the Bering Sea on the Summer Pollock Acoustic Survey. May the Frizzle be with us.
Looking back from the fly-bridge on the Bering Sea.
Mission: Summer Pollock Acoustic-Trawl Survey, Leg 3
Geographic Area of Cruise: Bering Sea, Alaska
Date: July 30, 2026
Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real. — Ansel Adams
Science and Technology Log
The internet is filled with selfies created by everyone from silly kittens to the Kardashians, but why are photos so addictive to us as humans? Cameras allow us to not only record where we have been, but also allow us to take others along on our adventures. They give proof of phenomena, chronicle history and record changes over time. Photography, since its invention in the 1820-1830’s, has played an important role in the toolbox of scientists (and also travel enthusiasts). The scientists of Oscar Dyson are no different. They too love a good photo, and continue to innovate new technology to capture and utilize photography for research. These photos take others along with them into the Bering Sea, but also provide important scientific information. NOAA scientists are earth influencers helping those on shore to understand this unique environment and inform decisions about the health of the Alaskan fisheries.
There are many different tools to capture pictures on Oscar Dyson because there are lots of different types of research that need to be recorded. Several of these specialized camera devices have been designed and built by innovative NOAA scientists to complete specific tasks in diverse locations. Two of my favorites are CamTrawl and CATCam.
CamTrawl coming in with the trawl net
CamTrawl: CamTrawl is a camera that attaches to the side of the pollock trawl net near where the fish collect. It takes images of the things flowing through the net. This is valuable information as it can be compared to the FS70 on the mouth of the net and Echosound data from the ship (both explained in a previous blog) to show what species was captured at specific locations and depths.
CamTrawl captures two pictures from different perspectives at the same time allowing scientists to measure the size of each specimen. NOAA scientists use a program specifically written to view CamTrawl images to look at each image set and use computer clicks to label each creature’s species. The program also lets scientists measure the length of the pollock and view the depth at which they are captured. Knowing the size of the pollock helps to determine its age/stage of life, important information when reporting on the health of the Alaskan fisheries.
CamTravel image added to Echogram
Look at the image of the data sources combined together. On the left is the photo taken by CamTrawl that was labeled by scientists. The location this photo was taken is marked on the chart next to it by an open red circle (center bottom). The black line represents the path of the trawl net. The bright colored circles are the groups of each species, the more that have been identified on a photo, the larger the circle. The background is the echogram information gathered by the boat during fishing.
Can you find krill, pollock and jellyfish? Do they appear at the same or different ocean depths? These different data sets allow NOAA scientists to determine if the fish patterns on the echogram were actually the fish they expected.
Constant Altitude Towed Camera (CATCam)
CATCam: CATCam (Constant Altitude Towed Camera) is a device used to capture deep underwater images from the seafloor. Dropped over the side, CATCam is a remote control submersible camera. It is designed to keep a constant height from the bottom and photograph the seafloor while slowly being towed by the ship. CATCam has sensors that detect the seafloor and activate thrusters that keep the cameras from crashing into the bottom. Scientists onboard the ship are also able to control the thrusters to guide CATCam into just the right spot. It is also equipped with bright lights to light up the dark bottom waters.
Because the pollock trawl doesn’t typically move along the bottom, often the species photographed are especially fun to see. Here are some of my favorite CATCam pictures:
Rockfish & AnemoneSkateOctopus
Under Pressure: In designing and building underwater cameras like CamTrawl and CATCam, NOAA scientists need to consider the issue of water pressure. These camera systems need to go deep down into the ocean and the deeper they go the higher the pressure becomes. Underwater pressure is called hydrostatic pressure and it increases dramatically as you travel deeper.
Check out these styrofoam cups. They were sent down on various deep water missions. They show the effect of underwater pressure. Styrofoam is made up of plastics filled with tiny pockets of trapped airy open space. When brought down under the water, these airy spaces are crushed inward on all sides, shrinking the cup. My middle school teacher had a tiny styrofoam cup that was towed behind a WHOI submarine that fascinated me: I can’t believe I now have one of my own. You can learn more about hydrostatic pressure with the fun interactive WHOI simulation.
shrunken styrofoam cups
Try It on Dry Land
Just like styrofoam, marshmallows are filled with tiny little pockets of air surrounded by a flexible material. Both styrofoam and marshmallow react to changes in pressure in similar ways. It took me decades to catch a ride to a deep sea environment and get a tiny styrofoam cup. If you aren’t that patient, you can create a similar environment at your desk with a few simple materials.
Illustration of a marshmallow inside of a syringe, created with Gemini AI
Marshmallows from the Deep
Materials:
2-3 Mini Marshmallows
60ml Plastic Syringe
Sharpie
Instructions
Use Sharpie to decorate mini marshmallows
Take plunger out of syringe and add marshmallows
Replace plunger
Hold finger over tip (or add a drop of hot glue tip)
Gently push plunger in to increase the pressure inside the syringe
What happens to the marshmallow?
What happens to the decoration?
If you gently pull the plunger in the opposite direction you are decreasing the pressure inside the syringe. What happens to the marshmallow?
Personal Log
Alongside all the scientific photographs being taken, I have been frantically clicking away behind my camera. I hope my photos introduce my story to my students. I hope they can feel the vastness of the ocean, the magic of life teeming underneath it and the breathtaking majesty of a return to the Alaskan mainland. I hope these photos cause students to ask questions I can’t answer, to think about careers far beyond those in our neighborhood, and dream of new innovations of exploration and preservation of this incredible place.
Mission: Summer Pollock Acoustic-Trawl Survey, Leg 3
Geographic Area of Cruise: Bering Sea, Alaska
Date: July 30, 2026
Weather Data from Bering Sea
Latitude: 58° 38.303’ N
Longitude: 176° 17.674’ W
Winds: SW at 9 mph
Air Temperature: 46.94° F (8.3° C)
“It is that range of biodiversity that we must care for – the whole thing – rather than just one or two stars.” – David Attenborough
Science and Technology Log
NOAA scientists conducting the Acoustic-Trawl survey are skilled at finding pollock, but even, so tiny amounts of other species also sometimes slip into the net. These unexpected creatures are called “bycatch.” Although not targeted, it doesn’t mean that these species are not important. A healthy pollock population depends on a complete and healthy ecosystem, so the science team also measures and takes data on these creatures before releasing most of them back to the water. Sometimes, the science team also gathers information about these species for other scientists on land conducting special projects for other programs. Here are some of the interesting fish that came in with trawls aboard Oscar Dyson on Leg 3.
Jellyfish
Outside of pollock, jellyfish have been the most frequent visitor to the trawl. Existing before dinosaurs, jellyfish trace their origin back over 500 million years, their closest relatives being corals and anemones. They are invertebrates (meaning they do not have a backbone) in the phylum Cnidaria, subphylum Medusozoa. Jellyfish are found around the planet in the world’s oceans and even in some fresh water ponds/lakes. Not a fish at all, jellies contain no brain, bones, gills or hearts. They are considered a keystone organism, one that holds the ecosystem together because it interacts with so many other species within the food web. Jellyfish’s main diet consists of tiny animals and plankton. They serve as food for sea turtles, fish, crabs, birds and even humans. Even though they can often sting, small animals will swim among jellies to hide from predators. So far we have seen 3 species of jellyfish in the trawls in the Bering Sea:
Chrysaora: The most common jellyfish found in the trawls this trip are by far Chrysaora. These stunning animals get their name from mythology. Chrysaor was the warrior child of Poseidon the sea god and Medusa, and his name means “adorned in gold” or “golden warrior.” It’s the perfect name for this golden beauty. Chrysaora are in the family commonly referred to as sea nettles. They can grow to reach up to 2’- 3’ in diameter. Chrysaora is typically found at depths up to 100 meters in the Bering and Arctic Seas. Since the 1990’s the total biomass of this species has been increasing. Biomass is the total amount of mass of an animal population in a specific area.
Chrysaora Jellyfish
Aequorea: Less showy and bright than Chrysaora, Aequorea jellies are predominantly clear with a flat smooth disk-shaped bell. Its name is taken from the Latin words aequor “from the sea” and aequus “even, flat or level.” Their family is commonly known as crystal jellies. This family of jellyfish fascinates scientists because they contain photoproteins that allow them to fluoresce with bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is the ability for animals to create their own light. Animals such as backyard lightning bugs and deep-sea fish are also capable of this unique adaptation.
Aequorea Jellyfish
Aurelia Jellyfish
Aurelia: Aurelia or moon jellyfish are one of the most widely distributed family of jellies. A. limbata, or brown moon jellies are native to the Bering Sea and coastal Alaska. They range in size from about 9 to 12 inches in diameter. They have a clear cup-shaped bell with brown to orange organs arranged in a circle around the center.
Fish
Pacific Cod: A relative of the Alaskan pollock, Pacific cod are also a cold water whitefish. Also similar to pollock, many people like to cook and eat cod, so this fish ended up as our guest in the mess later that night for dinner.
A Pacific cod in sample basket; later, plated for dinner in the mess hall
Northern Rock Sole: As a bottom dweller, the northern rock sole has both eyes on a single side of its head. His topside is a splotchy brown color, while his underside is a translucent white.
Northern Rock Sole
Chum Salmon: Though this one is not so big. Chum salmon are the second largest pacific salmon after chinook. Males of this species develop large canine-like fangs
Chum Salmon
Smooth Lumpsucker: A deep-sea fish, the smooth lumpsucker has a slippery, scaleless skin. Look closely to see the circle on its underside. The pelvic fins in this species are modified to form a disk used to help secure the fish to ocean surfaces in fast moving waters.
Smooth lumpsucker
Try It on Dry Land
Although you may not be able to hitch a ride out to the Bering Sea for the pollock acoustic survey, you can create your own trawling simulation with a box of Trix cereal and a few kitchen materials.
Trix Trawl
Materials:
1 box Trix Cereal
1 cookie sheet or shallow baking pan
A ruler
Tape
1 Tbs measuring spoon or scoop
Data chart (downloadable pdf)
* Optional small kitchen scale
Instructions
Use ruler to measure and mark with tape both long sides of the cookie sheet in 2” segments. These are your transects lines that you will sample from.
Drag the tablespoon from the mark on one side to the corresponding mark on the opposite side. This is your trawl net. You may not touch the cereal with anything but the spoon.
Sort the cereal into groups of the same shape/color type and record on data sheet.
Repeat until all steps until transects are complete.
Did you get the same number for each shape/color?
Do you feel like it was an accurate representation for all the cereal in the box?
Did you find anything unexpected in the cereal box?
NOAA scientists also gather the weight for each species group. If you have a small kitchen scale you can weigh each shape/color group and record. Is the set with the most individual pieces also the heaviest?
“The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.” – John Buchan
Science and Technology Log
As the saying goes “there are lots of other fish in the sea,” so how exactly does NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson find mostly Alaskan pollock in such a huge ocean? It’s a combination of structured transect planning, analyzing complex acoustic data and a little bit of luck.
Transects: At first glance the map of the 3 legs of the Alaskan Pollock Survey look like a crazy zig-zag path, so what’s going on and where are we going? The Oscar Dyson is traveling on a transect. A transect is a line drawn by scientists across an area used to measure, count and record the species living there. Oscar Dyson scientists are tasked with figuring out how many pollock are living in the Bering Sea, what age they are and their reproductive stage. As Oscar Dyson travels along each transect, the scientists decide where good places are to sample the pollock population using a long trawl net. It’s difficult to look into the ocean (though we will talk about cameras later) so NOAA scientists actually “listen” for the fish as they swim under the boat.
The sounding board on the bottom of Oscar Dyson sends and receives frequency information. (NOAA Fisheries)
EchoSound: Many people are familiar with the way animals such as bats and dolphins emit sounds and use echoes to gather information about their surrounding environment. The scientists on the Oscar Dyson also use sound and echoes to gather information about their environment in the Bering Sea. The boat has a sounding board underneath called a transducer that emits energy pulses at different frequencies and receives the echoes as they are bounced back. Objects with different densities send back different amounts of echo energy. Scientists in the Acoustic Lab onboard Oscar Dyson watch a screen for echo patterns that match the patterns that are expected from individuals and schools of pollock.
An echogram is a visualization of an echosound
Check out this image of an echogram. Echograms are a visualization of detected echo sounds. The bright red lines at the top and the bottom of the screen represent the surface and the dense ocean floor. The top wave of blues and greens is referred to as the “munge” ; it is a mixture of stirred up air bubbles, algae, plankton and other things that the team has determined is not pollock. Pollock are primarily in the area just above the bottom to about the middle of the water column. Boney fish such as pollock have a specialized organ called a swim bladder which allows them to take in and release gas, thus changing their density and allowing them to rise and fall in depth like a submarine. Not only is this organ useful to the fish, the air it contains has a different density from the surrounding water and reflects the echo energy that is emitted and picked back up by the ship’s transducer. Look carefully and you can see little colored dots and patches just above the ocean bottom depicted on the echogram. Those are fish and schools of fish. The scientists are confident that they are pollock but to be sure they need to collect a sample of the fish in those areas and get measurements from them.
Trawl: Once a spot has been identified by the scientists, a call goes out to the crew, “Fishing, Fishing, Fishing”. This alerts all aboard that the vessel is going to break from the transect and drop the nets into the spots that had lit up with fish patterns on the echogram. The net is rolled out from a giant spool controlled by the deck crew rather than the scientists. The tip of the net is called the codend, from the old English word “cod” meaning a bag or pouch and this is where the fish are collected. At the opposite end of the net is the opening where fish enter. The weave, or meshes, of the net gets progressively tighter the closer it is to the codend.
“Turtle” being attached to the kiteFS70 Echoscan
Attached to the net are several pieces of equipment that allow the scientist to analyze what is going into the net and when, during the trawl. The FS70, or netsounder, is a bright yellow device that also uses echoes to gather information. This piece is also sometimes called the “turtle.” You can see the crew here connecting it to a special part of the net called the kite. The kite and netsounder are attached and fly just above the opening of the net allowing the scientist to monitor what is going in.
Next to the picture of the crew you can see the image of what is being recorded by the netsounder on an information panel. This image of the “turtle” shows whether it is flying correctly, or oriented in the correct direction. The 2/3 circle image is a visualization of the echos the netsounder is receiving. The rainbow of color on the very bottom of this circle is the echo bouncing back from the bottom of the ocean, above that is another rainbow that represents the bottom of the net, above that if you look closely there are small blue marks just forming an oval with the rainbowed net bottom, those are the top of the net. When fish go into the net, they are represented as small dots, or blobs if a whole school is captured within this oval. The screen showing the echogram from below the ship and the screen with the netscan are placed next to each other on the control panel so that scientists can see the fish coming and hopefully adjust the nets accordingly to catch them.
The control panel on the Bridge.
Scientists only want a sample of the fish, so they monitor the netsounder until they feel they have enough fish to accurately represent what they are seeing and then call “Haul Back.” This call tells the crew to raise the net back onto the boat, and the science crew to put on their wetlab gear in preparation for fish processing.
Try It on Dry Land
Swim bladders allow fish to change the density and buoyancy of their bodies, allowing them to change their position in the water column. Buoyancy is an upward force of an object causing it to float or sink. You can make a simple model of a fish’s swim bladder (and a fun catch game) using items found around your house.
You need:
Paperclips
1 pen cap (Bic pen or other with the stick part)
1 soda bottle with cap
Clay
Instructions:
Source: sciencebob.com
Fill bottle to top with water
Secure clay around stick of pen cap (do not cover opening)
Bend paperclip to form hook
Attach paperclip into clay with hook pointing down
Drop cap/hook into soda bottle so that it floats
Twist another paperclip into an L shape and drop to bottom
Put cap tightly on bottle
To Activate:
Squeeze the bottle and watch the pen cap drop
Release your grip and pen can will rise
Practice controlling where in the water column you can direct the cap
Can you dive the cap to the bottom and hook on to the L shaped paperclip?
What in the Science is going on… The cap holds a bubble of air underneath which allows it to float. When you squeeze the bottle the pressure makes the bubble smaller and changes the density of the cap causing it to sink. A fish’s swim bladder works by the same principles. Find out more here: www.instructables.com/Cartesian-Divers/
Personal Log
Sun Path Diagram
Life on Oscar Dyson is different in many ways then life on land. For one, the scientists work in shifts. There is a 4 am to 4 pm shift considered the dayshift and another from 4 pm to 4 am considered the nightshift. Acoustic monitoring and fishing happen all day and all night. I am on the day shift. Adding to the change in daily rhythms is the extended amount of daylight during the Alaskan summer season. The sun is up and bright when I hit my bunk to sleep. The sun will not set until approximately 12:30am, some nights I have gotten up in the night to watch the sunset out my window. I report to the Acoustic Lab at 4 am in the dark to find out what the night shift has been working on, the sun will then rise again at around 7 am. It takes some getting used to as the sun is a natural trigger for my body to know when to be active and when to rest. It makes for a long day, but who can complain with such a stunning beginning.
“A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.” —John A. Shedd
Personal Log
Lupines in Dutch Harbor
A lot has to happen before the first pollock net is even cast. First the crew, including officers, engineers, deckhands and scientists must meet the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. If you are traveling from Dover, NH the trip is over 4,200 miles or about ⅙ circumference of the Earth. Dutch is a remote community nestled within an archipelago of volcanic islands which formed approximately 60 million years ago where the Pacific tectonic plate forces under the North American Plate. This meetup takes planning, time, and sometimes patience as the Aleutian Islands are often windy and foggy, making air travel from mainland Alaska unpredictable. Read more information about NOAA Ocean Exploration’s geological studies in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
Survey Transect Map
Once everyone is onboard, NOAA officers pilot Oscar Dyson out of Dutch Harbor and the Aleutian Islands into the Bering Sea. Check out this map of the Summer Acoustic Pollock Survey. The black line represents the path of the summer pollock survey which takes place over the course of 3 separate trips. I am traveling on the final survey of the summer, so it’s the farthest western side of the Bering Sea pollock survey that needs to be completed, the black line on the map not yet highlighted. It takes over a day to get out to this part of the ocean, but the crew and scientist have lots to do to get ready for the trawl during the trip.
Science and Technology Log
Running a science research center in a remote part of the ocean comes with “boatloads” of STEM challenges. Without the ability to order things online, go to a local home improvement store, or buy specialized parts off the shelf, the scientists and crew need to create their own solutions to the challenges that arise. Just like a STEM makerspace, NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson is well stocked with a tool workshop, 3D printer, and rolls and rolls of duct tape. Here are some of the amazing inventions from the super simple to the more complex that were designed onboard the ship.
Pegboard holding tools
Pegboard Modifications: On the high sea, wave and wind motion can be powerful, traditional pegboard hooks are just not going to cut it. These bright-colored accessories were custom designed and 3D printed on board to secure tools in their place. The calipers proved a bit trickier due to their asymmetrical design.
Underwater Camera: This underwater camera was created because the science team needed more information about what is going on beneath the ocean’s surface. To keep it from crashing into the ocean floor and becoming damaged, it was designed with sensors that move the robotic cameras up and down as it detects obstacles.
Underwater camera
Krill scan insert
Krill Scan: Needing a way to get tiny organisms measured and recorded, NOAA scientists came up with this 3D printed gadget designed to fit on the ship’s scanner. Soon after a trawl is pulled in, a pocket net (a small net used to recapture small fish that escape the larger net) is emptied and krill samples are sorted into their own square within the grid. Images are scanned and recorded while the creatures are still fresh. Marking around the squares allow scientists to calculate krill size easily and the boxes keep specimens from clumping together.
Camera stand
Microscope Camera Stand:This tool was designed and 3D printed to hold a cell phone in place to capture images of objects under the microscope.
Ichthystick: When fish come aboard, data on their length needs to be quickly calculated. The motion of the moving boat, and the slipperiness of a squirming fish make using traditional tools such as rulers and tape measures cumbersome and impractical. Meet the Ichthystick. This nifty device was designed by a NOAA scientist on Oscar Dyson for just these situations. Simply put the fish on the measuring board, set the magnetic marker at the fork of the fish’s tail and it instantly gives the fish’s length on screen. It can also toss the data right into a data collecting program. Look up the prefix “Ichthy” and find out why I think the name “Ichthystick” is such a perfect name for a device designed for keeping tabs on native Alaskan Pollock who often end up in your freezer.
Ichthystick and magnetic reader
Try It on Dry Land
STEM Scholars don’t just gripe about problems, they create solutions to these challenges. Think about things around you that don’t work quite right or annoy you as you try to complete your work. Design a device that helps you solve a reccuring challenge in your environment. Diagram your idea, or build a prototype to see if it works.
Here are some common middle school challenges or think up your own:
Your pencil frequently rolls of your desk
Your pet leaves muddy footprints across the floor
You can never find your sports gear when it’s time to leave
