watershed – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Amelia Black

Aboard NOAA Ship Oregon II

July 6-17, 2026

Current School: Williams Science and Fine Arts Magnet Elementary, Topeka Public Schools (USD 501)

Upcoming School: Jardine Middle School, Topeka Public Schools (USD 501)

Mission: SEAMAP Summer Groundfish Survey

Geographic Area of Cruise: Gulf of America/Gulf of Mexico

Date: June 28, 2026

Personal Log

At the USS Constitution in Boston with a group of History educators from Kansas.
From June 2026, headed from Kansas to Boston.
Taking a group of teachers to learn about Windfarms at Fort Hays, Kansas.

Hello, all, my name is Amelia Black and I am a proud Kansas public school teacher. I have been a teacher for over fifteen years with Topeka Public Schools (USD 501). Transitions, geography, incredible adventures, and connectivity is the theme for this summer.

One big transition for me will be happening this this coming school year as I move from teaching elementary ESOL ( English as a Second Language) to middle school. I will be transitioning to a new school and starting the next journey in my teaching career, teaching newcomers ELs (English Learners) at Jardine Middle School. Newcomers are students who are new to America, who often arrive speaking little or no English. I love working with my students, as well as other educators and helping them both to find their strengths, their voice, and empowering them through learning and inquisitiveness. My favorite part of being an educator are the moments when new understand or a new skill clicks and they have a ‘light bulb moment’. Seeing the understanding dawn is an amazing part of teaching.

Before I set up my new classroom, I am embarking on an incredible new adventure with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) as part of the Teacher at Sea (TAS) Program. I will leave Kansas on America’s 250th birthday (Independence Day) and I will be trading landlocked Kansas for open waters aboard the NOAA Ship Oregon II!

During this adventure, I will be learning from some amazing scientists and crew members as part of NOAA’s Summer Groundfish Survey. When I step onto the ship, I will be a “newcomer” myself. In addition to learning new vocabulary, scientific language, and marine culture, I will be getting my ‘sea legs’ as I learn how to navigate on a 170-foot fishing vessel. This will be a whole new adventure for me and as a life-long learner something I am truly excited to experience. I want my students to see that it is okay to try new things and step out of your comfort zone, that it is okay to be nervous when you learning something new and in a brand-new place. By stepping out of my comfort zone and working alongside NOAA scientists, I want to model resilience, curiosity, and bravery. Skills that I know my language learners experience as immigrants to America.

You might be wondering, what is an ESOL teacher doing going on scientific exploration? The answer is in connectivity. Connectivity between language, reading, science, and social studies. STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) AND Social Studies are essential for building background knowledge, academic vocabulary, and conceptual understanding. All components that are integral to comprehending complex texts and bring the joy of learning to the classroom.

As a passionate advocate for social studies, I serve on the board of the Kansas Geographic Alliance (KGA) and as a coordinator of their annual P4 Summer Institute (Plants, People, Places, Patterns). In this role I am given the opportunity to work alongside inspiring educators from across Kansas to explore and advocate for geography and social studies. Connectivity extends geographically: our rivers in Kansas lead to our oceans. The Midwestern watersheds affect our marine ecosystem in the Gulf. In participating in this experience, I will be able to bring back my learning and experiences not just to my students but to educators and others throughout Kansas.

To all my amazing students, families, and friends: I hope you are able to follow along this journey with me and I cannot wait to take you all on this learning experience. So get your maps out and follow along as we set off from Kansas to the Gulf of America/Mexico starting at Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Kansas Learning Log

Part of being a good educator is being prepared, so as I start this journey I want my log to reflect my learning but also the interconnectivity of science, social studies, and many other disciplines. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) TAS (Teacher at Sea) Program has a blog format that I will be following in future blogs. The blog outline will start with Weather Data from the Bridge and a Scientific Log before my personal log. Each log will end with a fun learning opportunity or a sneak peak, you will have to read to find out! For this intro blog, I wanted to give you all a look at the Weather Data from Topeka, Kansas as well as a little information about this fantastic landlocked state.

Weather Data from Topeka, Kansas
Latitude: 39.0483^o N
Longitude: -95.6780^oW
Elevation: 945 feet (288 meters) above sea level
Wind Speed: 15mph (13 knots)
Wind Direction: South (180^o)
Visibility: 10 miles (8.69nm)
Air Temperature: 93^o F, heat index of 108^o F
Barometric Pressure: 29.64 Hg (1003.73)
Sky: Mostly clear

A Little Bit about Kansas (Science and Technology Log)

You might already know a few things about Kansas. In addition to being a fly over state (thank you, Jason Aldean), Kansas is located in the middle of the United States. Kansas is the geographic center of the 48 contiguous United States (https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/PUBS_LIB/GeoCenter_USA1.pdf). In fact, prior to modern mapping technology advancements a ranch in Osborne County, Kansas was the official geodetic center of North America. This meant that all the maps created for the United States, Canada, and Mexico used this Kansas ranch as their reference point. https://www.penryfamily.com/geographicalcenters/meadesranch.html

Most people assume that Kansas is flat. However, the eastern part of Kansas is part of the Flint Hills and has some breathtakingly beautiful rolling hills and prairies. Additionally, the elevation of Kansas rises steadily from east to west. The lowest point of Kansas is 679 feet above sea level and the highest point is over 4,000 feet above sea level!

an elevation map of Kansas set against a white background. The counties are marked in gray lines. The lowest elevation, 679 ft, is colored dark blue. Relatively low-lying river valleys extend in feathery fingers away from the eastern border of the state, fading toward green, and finally toward a dark maroon patch (4039 feet) along the western border. — Color Elevation Map of Kansas from KU GeoKansas
image from: https://geokansas.ku.edu/color-elevation-map-kansas

Did You Know?

NOAA Ship Oregon II samples ocean habitats spanning all the way from Florida to Texas!

Sources
https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/PUBS_LIB/GeoCenter_USA1.pdf
https://www.travelks.com/listing/geographic-center-of-48-contiguous-states/2307/
https://www.penryfamily.com/geographicalcenters/meadesranch.html
https://geokansas.ku.edu/color-elevation-map-kansas

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Bill Henske
Onboard NOAA Ship Nancy Foster
June 14 – June 26, 2015

Mission: Coral Reef Condition Assessment, Coral Reef Mapping, and Fisheries Acoustics Characterizations
Geographical area of cruise: Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
Date: June 8, 2015

Personal Log

This is a picture of me in the St. Francis Mountains of southeast Missouri doing planning for a student backpacking trip. — This is a picture of me in the St. Francis Mountains of southeast Missouri doing planning for our middle school summer field study class.

As a middle school teacher, I often think about the experiences I had through my education that brought me to where I am now – what led to my passion for science and exploration. Giving students experiences, experts, and opportunities are essential to promoting a lifelong love of learning. When I learned about the Teacher at Sea program with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) I eagerly applied. This is a tremendous opportunity to grow in my capacity as a science teacher, role model, and colleague. Best of all, it would be an adventure where I would learn lots of new things!

Teacher at Sea bling will come in handy on this June's cruise through the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary — Teacher at Sea bling will come in handy on this June’s cruise through the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

I am very lucky to teach and learn at Maplewood Richmond Heights Middle School in a small, but diverse school district just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. We have a wonderful program of expeditionary learning at our public school. Our classrooms go from the watershed of our neighborhood, to the Mississippi valley, to the Appalachian Mountains, to the Gulf of Mexico. Through expeditionary learning, we can give students many similar experiences that led us teachers to enter STEM fields. Through field experiences and connections to scientists, students have opportunities to explore their interests and ignite passions.

This is a photo from 1993 when a friend and I canoed from college in Wisconsin to my home in St. Louis.

One of the important lessons we learn at our school from our study of watersheds during our 7th and 8th grade years is that we are really one giant watershed. The motto that “We all live downstream” is not just a metaphor for the way that our actions have consequences. “We all live downstream” is also very literal. My school community exists in the largest drainage area of North America, the Mississippi River. Our collective actions, whether they are positive or negative, have quantifiable effects downstream.

The interconnected systems of the hydrosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere also connect all of us humans. Because these resources are “free”, they have gone a long time through Western history without the respect of economic value. Students across our country are confronted with the sad statistics of environmental decline. They are bombarded with figures and facts about the negative trend in marine ecosystems. What truly drives my and many other teacher’s passion is the opportunity to provide the next generation with the hope of science and research. These tools will help us define problems and propose solutions that can stop or even reverse the situation.

This June I will be joining the crew of NOAA Ship Nancy Foster. We will be cruising the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the Dry Tortugas region where NOAA scientists will conduct fish sampling and acoustic tagging in order to determine the connectivity of fish populations between the various geographic entities. This essential work will help determine the fragmentation or cohesiveness of different populations of marine organisms as habitat is protected but in fragments. It would be interesting to incorporate this information and the techniques used as we set up our yearly pond study back in Missouri. Do fish move from one side of the pond to the other?

On this cruise we will also be deploying and installing the Integrated Tracking of Aquatic Animals in the Gulf of Mexico (iTag) array network. This system will help monitor the movement of marine organisms to determine larger scale movement of different populations and species. I can see this project leading to classroom lessons on population biology, genetics, and even speciation. The complexity of interactions between hundreds of species and dozens of distinct populations is truly astounding. Our scientists policy makers are often asked to distill this complexity down to a harvest number or population level. I want to bring back to my students the important role science has in, not only explaining the world around us but, shaping our future and helping develop or maintain the world we want.

Area of June NOAA cruise on the Nancy Foster — Area of June 2015 NOAA cruise on the Nancy Foster

I am so excited to be a part of the Teacher at Sea program and cannot wait to share my work and experiences with my students and school community. Every year we take our 8th grade class to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab where we study the marine science that others have discovered. This August, when I go back to the regular classroom, I will be one of the folks who helped make those discoveries!

As I finish this entry, I am thinking about how the coral, sponges, and mollusks of the Gulf will soon be filtering through the water that we floated through last week on the 11 Point River, here in Missouri. The water flows so easily and generously from the ground that an unfortunate majority here take its presence for granted. The water carried little bits of all of us, a connection, as it traveled its thousand plus miles to the ocean. On Saturday, June 14, I cycle myself through the atmosphere and hydrosphere to begin my adventure as a Teacher at Sea. Check back regularly for updates on our mission aboard the Nancy Foster and a taste of life on a research vessel.

My students and I became part of the watershed this past week, floating towards the sea along Greer Spring Branch in southern Missouri.

My students and I found a great way to cool off last week in Missouri. How long can you stand the 55º F spring water?

Tag: watershed

Bill Henske, Introduction, June 8, 2015