dry lab – Page 2 – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

July 10, 2010April 22, 2021

Elizabeth Warren, July 10, 2010

NOAA Teacher At Sea: Elizabeth Warren
Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces

Mission: Reef Fish Surveys
Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Mexico
Date: July, 10 2010

Another day.. more and more

Weather Data from the Bridge:
Temperature: Water: 30.3 ℃ (which is 86.5℉ ) Air: 29.6 ℃
Wind: 2.55 knots
Swell: .2 meters
Location: 27. 51° N, 93.18° W
Weather: Sunny, Humidity 62%, 25% cloud cover

Science/Technology Log:

Each time we drop the camera array at a site attached to the aluminum case is a little device called a Temperature Depth Recorder or a TDR. It measures exactly that. As the camera array sinks to the bottom it records the temperature and depth. When the camera array is brought back on board the ship one of the scientists unclip it and bring it into the lab. To get the information off you hit it once with a magnet that communicates with the chip inside telling it you want to download the information. Then the scientist places a stylus on the device and it downloads the information to the computer. The data is saved under the name of the site and then the information is entered into a spreadsheet that converts the information to the psi to meters. To clear the TDR you hit it four times with the magnet and when it flashes red it is clear! This is a picture of Kevin explaining to Anne Marie and I how to work the TDR.

At every site a CTD is also dropped into the water. A CTD (Conductivity Temperature Recorder) gives a hydrographic (use your Greek roots) profile of the water column. The CTD is attached to the bottom of a rosette or carousel that also contains water sampling bottles. Attached to the rosette is also a conductive wire that sends information to the lab. Mike, the survey technician, comes into the lab after every camera array is dropped and runs the CTD process. The CTD is placed in the water and allowed to acclimate for 3 minutes before they begin taking readings. The CTD is dropped to the bottom of the seafloor and Mike monitors from the dry lab. Also, once a week Mike also uses the water bottles. To take a sample they use a remote from inside the dry lab to trigger the bottles to close them. The thing that kept sticking in my mind is that at one point all of this was done by hand, someone had to do the math and all of these tests!

In the morning Kevin goes through the video footage from the previous day and for each site he identifies what is on the bottom of the seafloor “sandy flat bottom”, “rock shelf” and then he identifies briefly any fish that he sees. When he is doing this process being in the lab is necessary because he will call us over anytime he sees a neat fish and explain how he can tell what the species is. Today, we dropped the camera array in 8 different sites within Bright Bank sites. The two chevron fish traps brought up a whole lot of nothing. On the bandit reel we caught one fish. It was a sand tile fish (Malacanthus pulmieri). Anne-Marie weighed and measured him and then we threw him back. I was really proud of her because she doesn’t really like fish, but she put gloves on and did everything! Today was a little frustrating it even got Kevin a little down.

Personal Log:

Kevin calls living on board being “lovingly incarcerated” beacuse you are stuck here but you are well taken care of. For instance, Ohhh, the food! The Chief Steward, Jessie Stiggins is keeping us well fed. Every morning the meals are posted in the mess for everyone to see. We learned from Captain Jerry that food on the ship is very important and is actually a part of the contract. In the contract it states that lunch and dinner must include a prepared dessert. “Plain cake shall not constitute a prepared dessert but a cake with icing shall.” We have had dessert with every meal! Some of the desserts are Coconut Crème Pie, French Silk Pie, White cake with fluffy whip-cream frosting and strawberries, cookies, and pecan pie to name a few. Plus there is a freezer full of ice cream which oddly enough I haven’t gotten into yet. Right now, I’m in seafood heaven… we have had halibut, calamari, and catfish. Throughout the trip it has just gotten more impressive! We’ve had stuffed chicken breasts, rack of lamb, filet mignon, lobster, a taco bar, the amberjack that Ryan caught, and pulled pork. Jessie is saving the menu’s for us so we can show them off when we get back.

A few nights ago, Captain Jerry let Anne Marie and I drive the ship. He explained that we were driving a 52 million dollar vessel with 30 lives on board, as if I wasn’t nervous already. We were moving to the next days work area so the bridge would be driving there all night. Anne Marie went first and I listened as Captain Jerry and Ensign Kelly Schill explained how to drive and the proper language. Everywhere you go on the ship there is certain etiquette for the way you talk and the way you dress. (No tank tops in the mess and closed toe shoes everywhere but your stateroom.) When you are steering you are following a set course with a gyroscopic compass as well as a digital heading reading, you are steering the rudder by degrees. You state the heading in single digits so 173 would be one seven three. We were driving in the dark so they had all the lights off and they even had red flashlights so they wouldn’t ruin their night vision. Anne Marie and I both got a chance to turn the ship in circles. Anne Marie even did a Williamson turn, which is done when there is a man overboard. You turn 60° to the left and then an equal amount to the other side so you are back on your course but turned around to pick up the person who is overboard. When she was doing this, the ETA to the next way point changed from 6:10 am to NEVER. We both laughed pretty hard! Dynamic Positioning system that is the automatic pilot is called Betty, she talks to the crew on the bridge and is extremely polite. The Captain promised to show us how to turn the DP on and off. Everything on the bridge is electronic. You can click a button and see how much fresh water is on board, how much fuel, which engines are working and even wake someone up! I’m consistently in awe of how much technology goes into running a ship of this magnitude. Tomorrow Chief Engineer Garett is giving us a tour of the engine room. In fact he told me he is going to make us espresso and then take us down! I’m really, really, having a great time!

The water here is so blue! It’s a different shade of blue than the Pacific or Puget Sound. It’s bluer than green that’s the difference, there is no green. Even the seaweed isn’t green it’s a brownish yellow color, it’s called sargassum. The exchange intern Jose used a line and a hook to catch some so I could bring it back to show off. Looking over the side you often spot giant fish swimming along because the visibility is so high. This made me think of a lot of questions to ask Kevin tomorrow: Are there algae/plankton blooms in the Gulf? If so where do they happen? Does the temperature vary depending on the time of year or is it always warm? What do hurricanes do to the sea creatures? Have you noticed a rise or fall after a hurricane?

Being on board a ship makes me feel like I’m 7 years old again and I don’t want to go to bed because I’m sure my parents are making me miss whatever fun thing they are doing at night. I don’t want to go to my stateroom, I wish I could be everywhere at once, on the bridge talking to the Captain and asking questions, listening to the stories of the crew, watching them fish, talking to the birders up on the flying deck, sitting in the lab and listening to the scientists joke or explain how to identify a fish or a coral or an algae. I wish I were able to be out here longer although, I have to say having a shorter cruise does make me appreciate every minute.

June 5, 2010March 12, 2021

Richard Chewning, June 5th, 2010

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Richard Chewning
Onboard NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson
June 4 – 24, 2010

NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson
Mission: Pollock Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Gulf of Alaska (Kodiak) to eastern Bering Sea (Dutch Harbor)
Date: June 5th, 2010

Weather Data from the Bridge

Position: Three Saints Bay, Kodiak Island, Alaska
Time: 1000 hrs
Latitude: N 57 10.480
Longitude: W 153 30.610
Cloud Cover: overcast with light rain
Wind: 12 knots from NE
Temperature: 10.3 C
Barometric Pressure: 1001.1

Science and Technology Log

While taking on supplies and preparing for our cruise, the NOAA ship Oscar Dyson had the pleasure of welcoming six kids from the United States Coast Guard (USCG) 2010 Summer Program for a visit. These kindergarten through second graders were visiting from the USCG Integrated Support Command Kodiak, the largest Coast Guard base in the US. The Oscar Dyson’s medical officer ENS Amber Payne and I gave the students a firsthand tour of the Dyson.

chewning_log1_img_1 — NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson tied up in Kodiak, AK.

Highlights of the visit included a tour of the bridge with Executive Officer Lieutenant Jeffrey Shoup. The students were impressed to learn that the propeller of the Oscar Dyson is 14 feet across and specially tooled to be as quiet as possible so as not to scare away any fish that the scientists onboard want to study. The students also enjoyed looking through the BIG EYES, two high powered binoculars located on the flying bridge (the highest point on the vessel above the bridge) of the Oscar Dyson that will be used to survey marine mammals. Scientist Suzanne Yin of the National Marine Mammals Laboratory told the students about how she and her colleagues wbe surveying for whales during the upcoming cruise

The highlight of the tour involved a demonstration by Safety Officer Ensign Russell Pate of one of the Dyson’s Damage and Control lockers. The students also enjoyed trying on the immersion suits with help of Ensign Payne. Immersion suits are designed to protect the wearer from exposure other frigid waters that the Dyson will soon be sailing The kids had great fun donning the firefighting equipment and helping Fisherman Glen Whitney test one of the Dyson’s fire hoses off the fantail. The USCG kids also learned how to tie a square knot with Glen’s help. With a little practice, they were able to join their individual lines into one large line by tying each line end to end using the square knot they just learned. Each student was able to take their line home to practice their newly acquired knot tying skills

Another fun activity was led by Senior Survey Technician Kathy Hough. After Kathy led the students through a tour of the Dyson’s dry and wet labs, the students acted as junior scientists by sorting an array of Alaskan fish and measuring and describing each species, just like the Oscar Dyson’s scientists will do later during the upcoming Pollock survey.

After lunch, the students received a fun science lesson using the property of water’s high surface tension. The students constructed two-dimensional boats out of plastic milk jugs and used soap to propel their boats over a tray of water. This is a very fun activity for younger students that you can easily do at home. The materials required include cleaned plastic milk jugs, scissors, markers, trays of water, and soap (a bar of Ivory soap cut into small cubes). After tracing the outline of a boat (as if looking from the top down) on the flat surface of a milk jug, the kids cut out their boats and made a small notch on the back of the boat to place a small block of soap to serve as the engine. The kids then enjoyed racing their boats against each other across the trays of water! If trying at home, you will need to replace the water in the tray after each race as the water becomes contaminated by the soap. This activity works because water molecules want to strongly stick to each other creating a strong but flexible surface. By disrupting the arrangement of the water molecules and causing the water molecules to push away from each other, the soap enables the boat to ‘power’ across the surface of the water.

After all equipment and supplies were loaded and crew members were boarded, the Dyson moved a short distance to take on diesel at the fuel dock. At 1820 hours, we departed St Paul Harbor and said goodbye to the Oscar Dyson’s home port of Kodiak. The Dyson then sailed about eight hours south to Three Saints Bay, a protected harbor south on Kodiak Island. Three Saints Bay will serve as a location to anchor so the science team can calibrate their acoustic equipment and will shelter the Oscar Dyson from an approaching low pressure system producing gale-force winds.

Personal Log

Hello Everyone! My name is Richard Chewning, and I have the honor to be a part of NOAA Teacher at Sea program sailing with NOAA ship Oscar Dyson. For those who do not know, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a federal government agency charged with studying all aspects of the ocean and atmosphere. As you can imagine, these are broad areas of study. While large in scope, the work of NOAA affects everyone, whether you live on a coast or not. Have you ever heard of The National Weather Service or The National Hurricane Center? Both are NOAA divisions.
Here I am holding a baby king crab.

NOAA’s Teacher at Sea Program (TAS) aims to increase the public’s awareness and knowledge of NOAA science and career opportunities by having educators work alongside NOAA offices, ship’s crew, and shipboard scientists. NOAA’s TAS program invites both formal classroom teachers and non-formal educators alike to be a part of this amazing program. I myself am an environmental educator with the Jekyll Island 4-H Center. A Georgia 4-H program, the Jekyll Island 4-H Center is part of the University of Georgia. The Jekyll Island 4-H Center’s Environmental Education program welcomes 1st-12th grade students for environmental education field studies teaching coastal ecology using Jekyll Island as an outdoor classroom. I am the Environmental Education Program Coordinator and have enjoyed working for Jekyll 4-H for five years. For more information, visit http://www.jekyll4h.org .

I am very excited to be selected as a NOAA Teacher at Sea Participant and look forward to sharing my experiences with you through these logs.

Animals Seen Today

Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
Kittiwakes (Genus Rissa)
Pigeon Guillemot (Cepphus columba)
Magpie (Family Corvidae)

August 11, 2009April 6, 2021

Justin Czarka, August 11, 2009

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Justin Czarka
Onboard NOAA Ship McArthur II (tracker)
August 10 – 19, 2009

Mission: Hydrographic and Plankton Survey
Geographical area of cruise: North Pacific Ocean from San Francisco, CA to Seattle, WA
Date: August 11, 2009

Weather data from the Bridge

Sunrise: 6:25 a.m.
Sunset: 20:03 (8:03 p.m.)
Weather: partly cloudy
Sky: patchy fog
Wind direction and speed: Northwest 5-10 knots
Visibility: unrestricted to less than 1 nautical mile (nm) due to fog
Waves: 5-7 feet
Air Temperature: 15° Celsius
Water Temperature: 12.92 °Celsius

Science and Technology Log

The McArthur II took about six hours from leaving port in San Francisco to reach our first station at Bodega Bay. We arrived at Bodega Bay around midnight. Bodega Bay, along with the next three stations, Point Arenas, Vizcaino Canyon, and Trinidad Head, California, will be sampled at only one station location each as we move up the coast to reach our first transect line of nine stations off Crescent City, California (Latitude: 41 deg 54 min). Due to leaving port later than expected, the science team has dropped some of the sampling sites at the southern end of the cruise. Still we are sampling as we head north in order to get an enhanced survey picture along a north-south line. At the stations, we are dropping the CTD into the water column, using the vertical net, and the bongo net.

Jennifer Menkel and Lacey O’Neal observe the CTD deployment. The left screen display depth sounds on three different frequencies, the middle screen creates graphs based on the CTD sensors, and the right screen shows live video feed of the CTD deployment on the fantail (back deck) of the McArthur II.

While I did not participate in the first sampling at Bodega Bay, my shift (read more about shifts below) began sampling at Point Arenas and then Vizcaino Canyon. Upon entering the dry lab, Jay Peterson and Jennifer Menkel, both of Oregon State University, Hatfield Marine Science Center (OSU/HMSC) in Newport, Oregon, were observing the data stream for the CTD on the computer monitors with McArthur II senior survey technician Lacey O’Neal. Communication is essential. The scientists are looking at the TV monitors for the CTD deployment outside, altimeter (measures the CTD’s height above the seafloor), depth below the surface, and communicating with both the ship’s officers on the bridge, who are navigating the boat, and crew who are working the winches. Everyone has to work together to ensure that the CTD is deployed and retrieved safely. Otherwise, it could potentially hit the ship, causing damage to the ship, crew, and/or CTD sensors. I am appreciating the emphasis on collaboration that occurs for the benefit and safety of the scientific research occurring on the ship.

I will discuss the sample collection technique for the chlorophyll. The main purpose for measuring the chlorophyll is to determine the chlorophyll composition and suitability for single celled algae to develop. These single celled organisms are the basis of the food chain. By determining the amount of chlorophyll, you can look at the probability of organisms to develop at that location, such as plankton. Plankton succeed where there is enough light to allow photosynthesis to occur. Deni Malouf, a marine science technician from the U.S. Coast Guard, and I put on waders, boots, life jackets, gloves and hardhats. We headed out to the CTD to collect water samples from specific depths. After filling up brown bottles (which prevent exposure to sunlight) with water, we transferred the bottles to the wet lab to pour 100 mL through a filter that collects chlorophyll on top while allowing the water to flow through by utilizing a vacuum. This procedure is done while ensuring that the equipment, filters, and water samples avoid contact with your hands, thus contaminating the sample. After the water has been filtered the filter is placed in a centrifuge tube (vial) with tweezers, covered to avoid exposure to light, and stored in the freezer for lab analysis at a later date. The sample is covered to prevent exposure to sunlight. If not, sunlight could cause more chlorophyll to develop, which would be an inaccurate reading for how much chlorophyll was actually collected at specific depths in the water column at a sampling station.

I am measuring a 100 mL water sample to collect chlorophyll on a filter inside the black cups in the wet lab. These containers have a filter that at the bottom. A vacuum draws the water through white tube, leaving the chlorophyll behind on the filter.

Personal Log

The work conducted aboard the McArthur II, as well as other ships in the NOAA fleet, revolves around a schedule of watches (a watch is a shift). Crewmembers work on the McArthur II in four or eight hour watches. The time of day and length vary for different crewmembers. As for the science team, Bill Peterson, our chief scientist (cruise leader) from NOAA/ Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWSC), Newport, Oregon, arranged us into 12-hour watches. There is a day watch and night watch. I am part of the day watch, which commences at 7:00 a.m. and ends at 7:00 p.m. You muster (show up) about a half hour before your watch begins so that the previous watch knows you are ready to begin work, and to assist as needed with the end of the previous watch. My watch is comprised of Jay Peterson, Jennifer Mendel, and myself. There is a lot of teamwork and cooperation within the watches. Even this morning, Deni Malouf, who had been working the night watch, stayed on for a portion of the day watch to assist me with the protocol for filling up the water samples from the CTD, for preparing chlorophyll samples, and for setting up the Niskin bottles on the CTD to be deployed at the next station.

Vocabulary

*Dry lab- in the back of the O-1 deck (one of the floors on the ship above the waterline) where the computer equipment is situated. Used to monitor CDT deployment.*

*Wet lab-an indoor lab in the back of the O-1 deck connected where water samples are tested. Contains sinks, freezers, refrigerators, and science equipment.*

*Vertical net- a net deployed vertically through the water column at one specific location. Has a weight on the bottom of it to maintain its shape on the way through the water column.*

Bongo net- a net for collecting organisms, that appears to look like a set of bongo drums. Attached to a cable and the J frame, deployed off the side of the boat, and collects samples as the boat trawls at a specific speed to maximize the collection.