Geographic Area of Cruise: Northwest Atlantic Ocean
Date: August 15, 2025
Weather Data from Bridge:
First, Someone named Suzy asked if I am hopeful for the future of our oceans after seeing all the work that is done on my NOAA cruise. I am hopeful every day I get to go to school and see the brilliant young minds that are learning and developing so that they may work to solve our world’s problems. (Read more here). The dedicated people I’ve met through NOAA and on NOAA Ship Pisces remind me that we are using science in productive ways, like taking care of our oceans! Are you learning and doing your part? Thank you for reading and asking questions!
Dorothy and a plankton sieve
Second, the answers to the math problem from the previous BLOG: If we sorted through 1/8 of our Bongo net sample, and identified 20 krill, then we would estimate there to be 160 krill in the total sample. For part 2, the abundance is estimated as the number of krill expected per cubic meter. If the nets filtered through 5 cubic meters of water, we would expect to find 32 krill per cubic meter in this part of the ocean. (Alert, we’ll soon be calculating energy density in Chemistry!)
Observers Observing!
Science at Sea: Purpose! On purpose! With purpose!
It is hard to believe that my two weeks onboard NOAA Ship Pisces have come to an end. In many ways, it seems like I have just started. But when I reflect on all that I have learned about the science being done at sea, I realize I have been here long enough for some important things to sink in! I’d like to share some of these things with you.
Many of the Scientists I spoke with said that math wasn’t their thing. You don’t have to like math to do science, you do have to do some math, understand some math, check behind the computers on some math. There is a difference. We don’t live in a binomial world. You can’t say not liking math is a reason to not do math.
Science is a process. It is not a list of boxes to check or things to do. Science is a way of looking at the world. Observe, analyze, reflect, repeat.
Science can be used for good. NOAA Scientists are making our lives better.
We need more scientists. Are you ready? I’m ready to start a new school year sharing the insights I’ve learned as a NOAA Teacher at Sea!
Gear is ready for next time!
You do the Math: I’ve worked 12-hour shifts, 3pm-3am each day of the Summer2025 EcoMon meeting Scientists, doing science, seeing Science in action, and developing ways to connect my students with relative, real-world experiences. How many hours of professional development credit should I receive? OR Since a work day is considered to be 8-hours, how many days of “comp time” should I earn? (Teachers in some schools can earn “compensatory time” for work done outside of the school day, to be used on teacher workdays, not on regular days with students.) Feel free to post a kind reply in the comments.
Yes, that’s a sea horse!
Interesting Things: As a NOAA Teacher at Sea participant, I have had the privilege to work with an awesome Summer EcoMon 2025 crew. I have basked in the joy of focusing on science and ways to bring back some insights to my classroom in North Carolina. Some observations have come more organically than others. For example, on the Pisces, the mission is clear. Every department is working towards the goal of collecting our scientific data, but not in the same way. At school, our departments are also working, but sometimes our goals are in conflict… Increase test scores? Winning football season? Resume booster? Full stomachs? Social conduit? College acceptance? Understand the world? Develop skills? Create citizens? Workforce development? Avoid gun violence? Learn content?
The Wardroom
NOAA Corps is responsible for operations, safety, and project completion (possibly like school administration) but they must rotate off the ship after 2 years and they don’t make decisions unilaterally. Their well-honed leadership comes in understanding the institutional knowledge of each department.
I wonder what would happen if our school systems invested in clear missions and departmental leadership. I would settle for “just” focusing on science! 😊
View from the Wet Lab
Teacher at Sea/ Career Spotlight:
As part of my Teacher at Sea work, I’ve created a game to help my students see many of the people and careers on the NOAA EcoMon cruises. In addition to the Science, NOAA Corps, Deck, and Engineering departments I’ve been able to highlight in my blog posts, the Stewards, Survey, and Electronic Technician departments are also mission critical. Come to West Johnston to play my Career Exploration game.
I’ve also found ways to integrate real world skills and relevant examples into the content I teach. Next year specifically, we will be honing my “Death at Sea” Forensics Lesson and “Ocean Calorimetry” Chemistry lesson. Finally, I will be leading a session called “Come Sail with NOAA” at the NC Science Teacher’s Association PD conference in November. If you would like to learn more about applying to be a NOAA Teacher at Sea, or a Science Teacher in North Carolina, please come check us out. (read more here: NCSTA)
After our last data collection stop, we checked out the last sunset!
Personal Log: I am thankful for my community – those who have and continue to nurture, teach, and inspire me to observe, learn, enjoy, and be curious! This is going to be the best school year ever!!
Mission: Integrated West Coast Pelagics Survey (Leg 4)
Geographic Area of Cruise: Pacific Ocean, California Coast
Today’s Date: August 13, 2025
Weather Data from the Bridge:
Latitude: 42° 06.3’N
Longitude: 124° 35.0′ W
Wind speed: 2.4 kts.
Wave height: 1-2 ft.
Air temp.: 12.3° C (54° F)
Sky: Fog
Science and Technology Log
While I was sleeping, the net that we helped set out was brought back in with a haul of hake. Exactly what the morning crew was looking for! It was almost entirely hake, which made the processing extremely straight forward. Some might be inclined to think that this is exactly what science is supposed to look like.
Fast forward to my shift again and shortly after we woke up, there was a haul that was ready to be brought in. We were all very excited for our first chance to process a catch. Well, this time when the net was brought up, it was awfully full. We were excited about the possibility of going through the catch and finding our target CPS, Coastal Pelagic Species. However, it was almost entirely full of krill, and did not have a single specimen of what we were looking for. Now, some might think that this means our haul was a failure and/or it was bad science.
Those people would be wrong. While the first two hauls of this leg of the survey are diametrically different, they are both good. Science requires good data. Data is good when it is reliably accurate. It doesn’t matter if it is larger numbers or zeros. So, in our case, while we didn’t get the information we were looking for, we now know that what we did had a result of zero for our targeted CPS . We also know that where we fished resulted in a catch of krill. This is knowledge that we can use next time to help us get what we are after.
About to empty the first catch.A lot of krill.
In the second catch we did get a few different species. We caught: North Pacific krill, moon jellyfish, and a handful of eulachon. The eulachon were all weighed and measured for length.
Personal Log
Today is my brother’s birthday. Happy birthday! I am feeling much better. I continue to take the sea sickness prevention medicine, but I think I have found my sea legs. I am starting to feel like I know my way around NOAA Ship Shimada more and more, or at least the places I am supposed to go. 🙂 I was happy to make it from my bunk, down past the wet lab and acoustics lab, through the hall, past the mess, down some steps, through a room I never need to stop at, and to the laundry on my very first try! Our ship even has two places to work out. I am not brave enough to try a treadmill when the boat is rocking, but I did take an opportunity to do some jump rope.
I am amazed by the engineers who think through everything that needs to be done to make a ship like ours work. It is a maze of rooms, cords, and more, but all of it is well thought out and has a purpose.
I was a little disappointed today. We had a little extra time in between work during my shift so I went out to check on the stars, but it was foggy out so I could only see a few feet away. But I am learning a lot and having a ton of fun. It will be interesting to see what it will be like when we are getting more and larger hauls in a single shift.
Also, it’s a big deal back in Milwaukee, but the Brewers have won 11 games in a row. One more tonight means free burgers in the city! When I spoke with my wife and kids, they were definitely hoping for a win tonight. Let’s go Brew Crew!
Measuring a fishEnjoying my work in the wet lab
Did You Know?
The eulachon is also known as the candle fish. It got the name from the fact that it is so oily that if you dry the fish out, you can light the tail on fire and it will burn like a candle. In the past, the eulachon was prized for its oil. The oil will even be solid at room temperature, similar to butter.
NOAA Teacher at Sea Kiersten Newtoff Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces January 6 – January 29, 2025
Mission: Atlantic Marine Assessment Program for Protected Species (AMAPPS) Geographic Area of Cruise: North Atlantic Coast Date: January 10, 2025 Current Location: 37° 35.83 N, 73° 39.83 W (you can follow us at Windy in real time!) Weather from the Bridge: Waves are 3-5ft, 42°F, wind speed of 15.8kn, and we are traveling 9.9knph.
What is Zooplankton?
If you ask someone what their favorite marine animal is, I guarantee it’s either dolphins, whales, turtles, or sharks. And honestly, you can’t really blame them. The term charismatic megafauna exists for a reason. Fortunately, these animals have used their charisma to inspire us to protect them and their habitat. While they have been great stewards for conservation, they don’t tell the whole story of what’s happening in the ecosystem.
One example of zooplankton is small krill, as seen in this sample container.
While some of the research groups on the Pisces are focused on marine mammals and seabirds, The Bongonauts focus on zooplankton. Plankton just refers to any organism in the water that can’t swim against a current and ‘floats’ in the water column. You can then further split plankton into animal-like (zooplankton) or plant-like (phytoplankton). The marine food chain starts with phytoplankton, which get consumed by zooplankton, which might get directly eaten by a baleen whale, like humpbacks. Zooplankton may also get eaten by small fishes then larger fish that eventually are consumed by toothed whales. Identifying and quantifying the abundance of zooplankton helps us to understand the health of the food chain. There really aren’t any “Save the Zooplankton” movements happening because let’s be honest, it’s hard to get people to like microscopic organisms. But their downfall due to changes in ocean temperature, salinity, and currents will permeate to the top of the food chain of whales, dolphins, and other megafauna. If we wish to protect the ‘cute’ species, we need to protect their food too!
Let’s Get Ready to Bongo!
Here enters the bongo. If you’ve played Donkey Kong, then you already know what a bongo is. A bongo is a set of two drums that are connected in the middle. In the marine world, what we do is beat on this drum set on the side of the boat and collect all the zooplankton that jump out of the water into collection buckets.
………………………..
Just kidding! But that would be cool.
Although we don’t have the musical bongo, we do have a plankton bongo! It was so named because there are two frames connected in the middle supporting the two plankton nets, kind of like a bongo drum. The nets are made of a mesh with openings that are 1/3 mm. As the nets travel in the water, the water can move through the mesh but larger organisms like zooplankton can’t. Part of the bongo apparatus is the CTD, which uses a series of sensors to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth. These oceanographic variables can help to explain the zooplankton communities we see.
(Left) A bongo net is coming out of the water. The device you see on the rope is the CTD, (Right) The zooplankton team gets lots of support in deploying the bongo nets from the deck crew. Pictured (left to right): Amanda, Tanya, Tasha, and Kiersten.
Bongo time is during the evening and is deployed in the same general areas as the cetacean observations earlier in the day. This allows the scientists to make correlations between plankton communities and the cetaceans spotted earlier. We release the bongos in the evening as the speed needed for a successful deployment is around 3 knots, whereas the observation teams need to be at a minimum of 8 knots. Also, many zooplankton undergo a diel vertical migration (move upwards) in the evening, making it more likely to get a representative sample of zooplankton from the entire water column.
Bongos, a Haiku gliding through water collect plankton by bongo hopefully, cool things
Meet the Bongonauts
Amanda monitors the depth of the bongo so she can communicate with the boatswain when to start hauling it back to the boat.
On this cruise, Amanda and Lily make up the zooplankton team. Amanda is a Biological Science Technician and has been working with NOAA since 2018. During her undergraduate studies, she spent a semester abroad focused on marine science. As soon as she finished, she immediately began looking for marine jobs. Her first position was with NOAA focusing on commercial fisheries. A few years later in 2021, her contracting company had another position within NOAA that she switched to and started focusing on zooplankton. One of the coolest things she’s seen in a bongo net was a strawberry squid, but don’t worry, it was promptly returned to the seas. She enjoys working with other groups on the science team to see what they are finding, and every time the nets come up there is excitement over what they may contain.
Lily examines the plankton spoils. Some are preserved in ethanol and others in formalin.
Lily is currently a sophomore at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. The professor in one of her classes shared with her the opportunity to sail with the Pisces to volunteer on the zooplankton team and she took it up! Her future career goal is to understand the environmental impacts of cruise ships in port. Further along the line, she would like to get a Master’s in Library Science and be a children’s librarian. She chose Mass Maritime for their marine science program; other schools with similar programs were out of state or prohibitively expensive, but she feels like she’s made the right choice. Of all the things she’s told me, Mass Maritime seems really cool and gives lots of hands-on experience to their students.
Advice for Students
Amanda and Lily shared some of their insights for students who may want to work for NOAA some day.
Look for jobs on Indeed and LinkedIn. If you are already working with a company, see if they have other positions that you might like.
If you’re interested in marine science, go to a school that specializes in it. Avoid institutions that have it as a small program or just a minor, as you likely won’t be getting nearly as much hands-on experience as a school dedicated to it.
Keep your opportunities open – you might think you like Marine Science now but that may change as you do field work.
Even if an opportunity comes up that is not related to marine science, do things to give you any sort of field experience.
One way scientists assess the health of our ocean’s ecosystems is to take samples of zooplankton and ichthyoplankton (fish eggs and larvae), both on the surface of the water and at depth. Observations of these plankton can inform us greatly about productivity at the bottom of the food chain, spawning location and stock size of adults, dispersal of larval fish and crabs to and away from nursery areas, and transport of ocean currents.
The Newport Hydrographic (Newport Line) is an oceanographic research survey conducted by NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and Oregon State University scientists in the coastal waters off Newport, Oregon.
Researchers have collected physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic metrics along the Newport Line every two weeks for over 20 years. This twenty-plus year dataset helps us to understand the connections between changes in ocean-climate and ecosystem structure and function in the California Current.
Data from the Newport Line are distilled into ocean ecosystem indicators, used to characterize the habitat and survival of juvenile salmonids, and which have also shown promise for other stocks such as sablefish, rockfish, and sardine. These data also provide critical ecosystem information on emerging issues such as marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, hypoxia, and harmful algal blooms.
Newport line
Barometer of ocean acidification and hypoxia in a changing climate
Global climate models suggest future changes in coastal upwelling will lead to increased incidence of hypoxia and further exacerbate the effects of ocean acidification. The Newport Line time-series provides a baseline of biogeochemical parameters, such as Aragonite saturation state—an indicator of acidic conditions. Researchers can compare this baseline against possible future changes in the abundance of organisms (e.g., pteropods, copepods and krill) sensitive to ocean acidification and hypoxia.
Equipment used
Vertical/half meter net
Getting the vertical net in the water
Vertical net deployed vertically in the water from a research vessel
A vertical net is a ring net with a small mesh width and a long funnel shape. At the end, the net is closed off with a cylinder (cod-end) that collects the plankton. It is deployed vertically in the water from a research vessel. It is mostly used to investigate the vertical/diagonal stratification of plankton. This allows the abundance and distribution of mesozooplankton to be determined.
Bongo net
Washing the sample down the bongo net
A bongo net is drawn horizontally through the water column by a research vessel
A bongo net consists of two plankton nets mounted next to each other. These plankton nets are ring nets with a small mesh width and a long funnel shape. Both nets are enclosed by a cod-end that is used for collecting plankton. The bongo net is pulled horizontally through the water column by a research vessel. Using a bongo net, a scientist can work with two different mesh widths simultaneously.
Assisting Toby with Isaacs-Kidd net
Isaacs-Kidd midwater trawl
Isaacs-Kidd midwater trawl dimension
Isaacs-Kidd midwater trawl collects bathypelagic biological specimens larger than those taken by standard plankton nets. The trawl consists of the specifically designed net attached to a wide, V-shaped, rigid diving vane. The vane keeps the mouth of the net open and exerts a depressing force, maintaining the trawl at depth for extended periods at towing speeds up to 5 knots. The inlet opening is unobstructed by the towing cable.
What we got?
Samples from vertical netSamples from bongo net
Isaacs-Kidd sample
Krill from the Isaacs-Kidd
Personal Log
SHARK ATTACK!
That’s right, our underway CTD was attacked by a shark.
R.I.P.
On a bright and sunny day, the science team decided to launch the underway CTD, but things didn’t go as planned! Retrieving the uCTD back to the ship we saw a big dorsal fin zigzagging close to the uCTD, until we noticed that the uCTD was no longer attached to the line, therefore we had no choice that to cancel the uCTD. You should have seen all of our faces; we couldn’t believe what we saw. We think it could have been a:
White sharkSalmon shark
underway CTD (what the shark ate)
CTD stands for conductivity (salinity), temperature, and depth and it enables researchers to collect temperature and salinity profiles of the upper ocean at underway speeds, to depths of up to 500 m. Ocean explorers often use CTD measurements to detect evidence of volcanoes, hydrothermal vents, and other deep-sea features that cause changes to the physical and chemical properties of seawater.
Weather at 1300 Pacific Standard Time on Monday 15 July 2019
We’re slowly coasting through a dense patch of fog. I can see about 20 meters off the deck before the horizon tapers to a misty, smoky haze. Then my eyes are affronted with a thick wall of white. It’s like we’re inside a room covered in white felt wallpaper – one of those rooms in a funhouse where the walls keep closing in on you as you walk through it. For safety, the ship keeps sounding a loud horn at least once every 2 minutes to announce our position for other boats in the area. It’s been like this for an hour now. It’s a little spooky.
PERSONAL LOG
On a brighter note, we saw whales earlier this morning! We were one mile off the coast of southern Oregon, and ahead of us we saw the backs of a few whales peeking out of the surface. I was able to grab a pair of binoculars sitting next to me on the bridge, and with those I could clearly see their dark bodies in the water! Every once in a while one would gracefully lift its tail above the surface as it prepared to dive. They were so cute!
Eventually we got closer to them and we started to see more whales on either side of the ship. I spent probably 15 minutes moving from one side of the bridge to the other with my binoculars to get a better look. I’m lucky the NOAA Corps officers are so accommodating! Otherwise I think my constant fluttering from one area to another could’ve been construed as a pain.
The officers like to see whales too, so they were happy to share what they knew with me. It turns out we were most likely watching Humpback Whales. LT Dave Wang, Operations Officer on the ship and trained as an ichthyologist (fish biologist), said most whales have a distinctive blow pattern, tail shape, and dorsal fin size that makes it easier to identify which kind he’s looking at. I had no idea before today that there were so many different species of whales. I knew Orca – Free Willy, Humpback, and maybe something called a Blue Whale? But that would’ve been the extent of it. In the marine mammals identification guide housed on the ship, there are 45 types of whales in the table of contents! And that’s probably not a complete list of all whale species.
At one point today, eventually, once the fog lifted, we were 36 miles off shore and started seeing shoals of coastal pelagic species all around the ship. We could pick them out easily because each shoal looked like a dark, churning, rippled inkspot on the otherwise smooth-as-glass surface. While the low wind conditions are partly what left us in a thick layer of fog all afternoon, it is what also kept the water smooth enough to pick out the shoals. So I guess not all was lost. We saw even more whale activity around these shoals than we saw this morning, and they were a lot closer to the ship!
One of the whales just off the starboard bow left a footprint. Larger whales like the Humpback produce larger footprints, and the calm sea state today allowed us to see them! It looked like a smooth patch of water in the center of concentric circles.
I’ve been trying to see whales and other marine mammals the whole trip. I saw a sea lion the other day, just one glimpse of it before it went under the water and we left the area, but now having seen the whales I feel pretty content. The Commanding Officer of the ship also told me that seals or sea lions like to hang out on the pier that we’ll be docking at in San Francisco, so there’s still hope yet!
THE SCIENCE
If you’ve ever been whale watching on a boat, the type of whale you probably saw was a Humpback Whale. They can often be seen near the shore since they like to stay within the continental shelf, and they spend a lot of time near the surface compared to other whales. Not all whale species exhibit this same behavior. If whales had a personality, I would call the Humpback Whales the Jersey Shore cast of the sea. They do things that come across as attention-seeking behaviors to the outside observer – slapping their unusually long flippers on the surface of the water, smacking their tails against the water in agitation, flipping their tails in the air before diving, and sometimes breaching the surface with their whole bodies. Of course, they’re not doing it to get our attention. But it makes for easy and exciting observation!
All Humpback Whales have unique patterns of coloration and texture on their flukes, so scientists can use photos to track specific animals as they migrate or go about their regular activities in a similar fashion to how we use fingerprints to uniquely identify people.
They also have the advantage of something called countershading. One of the whales I saw today had a silvery-shiny underside to its fluke that glistened in the sunlight and contrasted greatly with the dark, almost black color of its back. A lot of fish and marine mammals like whales and porpoises use countershading to help camouflage them by having naturally darker backs (dorsal side) and lighter stomachs (ventral side). This way when something is looking down at the creature, it blends in with the dark depths of the ocean, and when something is looking up at the creature, it blends in better with the lighter, sunlit layer of water near the surface.
Anything from krill to small fish are fair game for Humpback Whales when they’re hungry. Sometimes a group of Humpback Whales will work together as a team to catch fish. One way they do this is by bubble net feeding. It’s rare to witness, but a bubble net is a pretty sophisticated way to catch fish. It reminds me of the trawling we do each night from NOAA Ship Reuban Lasker except in this case the whales use a circular pattern of bubbles to corral a bunch of fish into one area… then they thrust forward aggressively, quickly, to scoop up the masses. We use a trawl net to corral the little critters into a codend instead of swallowing them whole.
Photo of Humpback Whale Using Bubble Net to Catch Anchovies. Photo by LT Dave Wang, taken earlier this year
Quart Jar Filled with Krill Collected in a Bongo Tow
Baleen whales, like the Humpback, have a unique mouth that is hard to explain. If you can visualize a pelican’s beak, it looks a bit like that from the outside. These whales gulp a whole mouthful of water – including zooplankton, krill, and small fish – into their mouths, but they don’t swallow it down outright and they don’t exactly chew their food either. With all that saltwater and prey in their mouths, they use long rows of baleen attached to their upper jaw like a fine-toothed comb. And just like we would use a cheesecloth to strain the moisture off of runny yogurt, Humpback Whales filter the water out of their mouths through the baleen and keep the fishy goodness for themselves.
TEACHING CONNECTIONS
Watching the whales all day kept drumming up images in my mind from when I read Grayson by Lynne Cox. I wrote a review of Grayson in July 2014 on the Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts (PCTELA) blog. This book, by far, is one of my favorite recommendations to read aloud to students.
If you’re not an English teacher, you probably didn’t spend a lot of late nights in college reading novels to cram for a test. It wasn’t part of your major. But you’re missing out! There are so many ways to use novels and literary nonfiction across the content areas. Grayson, for example, is artfully written. In the book review I wrote it tells Lynne’s “account of meeting a baby whale in the ocean during one of her early morning training swims. This lonely whale, separated from its mother, stays close to Lynne in the water while fishermen search for the mother. This true yet almost unbelievable story is hauntingly beautiful.”
Taking 15 minutes of class time to read an excerpt from this book aloud could enrich any classroom. There are many instances when she writes about wanting to give up and swim back to shore. The baby whale is ultimately not her responsibility. It was very cold. She’d been out there in the ocean for hours with nothing but her own strength and experience to keep her afloat. She hadn’t eaten all day. But she stayed with the baby whale. She resolved to see it through to the very end. Any teacher can use her stick-with-it attitude as an example to encourage students to work through academic challenges.
One of my friends, blogger Allyn Bacchus, is a middle school social studies teacher. He uses historical fiction in his class every year. He writes, “My 8th grade U.S. History class covers a unit on Industry and Urban Growth in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. I have supplemented our unit with the historical fiction novel Uprising written by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It covers the story of 3 teenage girls and their involvement in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York in 1911. The author brings to life the living, working, and social conditions of the time period and allows my students to experience this unit through the eyes of girls who are living in it.”
Through the eyes of girls who are living in it. This is something a textbook cannot do.
No one knows your discipline, your students, and your intended classroom environment better than you. Take an hour to fall down the Amazon rabbit hole! Search for a topic you find interesting and relevant to your curriculum, read the book review, click on the comparable book recommendations… you get the point. Most of the time you can find a book preview to check out the text before purchasing – is the font too small? Too complicated? Too boring? Choose a short excerpt from a text you like for your first attempt at using literature in the classroom and build from there.
TEACHING RESOURCES
Since we’re talking about literature today, I’ll narrate the resource list.
We can search online for other educators who have already blazed the trail for us. Here is a blog post written by Terry McGlynn titled Assigning Literature in a Science Class. The post itself is well written, and if you take the time to read through 54 comments below it, you will find lots of other text recommendations for a science classroom. This article written by Kara Newhouse titled How Reading Novels in Math Class Can Strengthen Student Engagement shows why two math teachers read books in their high school classrooms. One of those teachers, Joel Bezaire, wrote a blog post with suggestions for other novel studies in math class. The other teacher, Sam Shah, shares a student example to explain how powerful it can be to use literature in a math class. It gets students to understand abstract and often elusive mathematical concepts.
I’ve written four nonfiction book reviews to accompany this NOAA Teacher at Sea experience and PCTELA is posting one review each week in July to the new media platform on their website. If not Grayson, then maybe you’ll find useful one of the books I read and reviewed to prepare for this trip. They include Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World, and Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.
And finally, I would be remiss to end this post without steering you toward The Perfect Storm written by Sebastian Junger about a small fishing vessel and crew caught in an Atlantic storm and In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick – a captivating true story about the whaling industry which is thought to be the inspiration for Moby Dick.
