NOAA Teacher at Sea Kristy Weaver Aboard The R/V Savannah May 23 – June 1, 2012
Mission: Reef Fish Survey Location: Back in Jersey Date: June 7, 2012
You can be anything you want to be when you grow up! While I was on the R/V Savannah there were two main types of jobs that people were doing. There were the scientists and the crew of the ship. If you think you might like to be a biologist or work on a ship someday these videos may help you to learn more about these jobs.
I would like to introduce you to some of the new friends I made on the ship:
COLLEGE STUDENTS:
Meet Dan- Marine Biology College Student
SCIENTISTS:
Meet David- Fisheries Biologist with NOAA
Meet Warren- Fisheries Biologist with NOAA
Meet Zeb- Fisheries Biologist with NOAA
Meet Stephen- Wildlife Biologist with South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources
Meet Jennifer: Recent Graduate of The College of Charleston and new full time employee at South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources
Ray Sambrotto is the PI (principal investigator) for this expedition. His job, besides doing investigations in the lab, is to coordinate the entire BEST mission. He has to meet daily with the Coast Guard Officers, check accountability and coordinate sampling, but there is a lot more. He is constantly on watch to fix potential problems that might arise. And they do arise.
Dr. Sambrotto works with two scientists, Drs. Cal Mordy and Nancy Kachel to coordinate sampling.
So we needed a point of contact, to run communication and requests between the very busy scientists and us. David Hyrenbach, from the University of Washington, is acting as our liason with the scientists on the BEST cruise. There are so many scientists and so many projects, we needed organization to help us learn who is who doing what and when and maybe why.
David Hyrenbach is our education liason.
He steered us in the direction of creating a table of rotation visits to the various scientific teams on board. We used the theme of ‘Energy and Matter Transfer Through the Ecosystem.’ We divided all the teams into where they fit in the ecosystem.
Easy enough?
But in reality, it doesn’t work that way. Some scientists might have equipment malfunction. Some might have sample contamination or lack of a sample. There are many ways things can go wrong. And they do. When that happens, they go to a holding pattern and regroup. All scientists suffer setbacks. It matters not that you have had extensive meetings, done problem solving, and communicated with everyone that needs to know. This is science. And anything that might happen will happen.
Working to prep equipment
In science, you need to have a backup plan, and then another backup plan. If something happens to Plan A, continue the experiment with Plan B. If Plan B goes down, take up Plan C.
Dr. Cal Mordy was my first rotation scientist. He is testing the water for certain nutrients.
Making observations from the bridge is an enjoyable task.
