Virtual Field Trip: Back to the Surface with Schmidt Ocean Institute & NASA
Summary
For this cruise Schmidt Ocean Institute joins forces with NASA aboard the R/V Falkor to examine surface-level particle interaction between the air and sea, particularly the composition and distribution of particles in the ocean. Ocean particles include a generic mix of materials from terrestrial dust to fecal pellets to marine debris and microplastics all mixed together with phytoplankton. How these mixtures of matter are composed and distributed influences ocean ecosystem dynamics and the ocean's role in processes like carbon and nutrient cycling. If scientists can better describe and quantify ocean particles then they can generate better predictions about a range of processes including climate change, eutrophication, and ocean acidification - all issues explored in EarthEcho Expeditions.
Central to this cruise aboard the Falkor is the ability to validate remote-sensing data, like that from satellite imagery, with direct sampling of ocean particles through real time measurement of particle size and composition in seawater. Ground-truthing the information that satellites can provide will improve accuracy in remote sensing estimates of marine particle size distributions which has implications for climatologists, oceanographers, and other scientists throughout the world who are modeling or investigating global processes.
The virtual field trip will give students an opportunity to learn more about how NASA connects the tools of space with the tools for ocean exploration as well as how ocean particles, phytoplankton in particular, provide essential information about climate change. EarthEcho International will facilitate an interactive discussion between scientists aboard the Falkor and classrooms with 2-3 classrooms featured on-camera.
Panelists
Ivona Cetinić
Ivona Cetinić is a phytoplankton ecologist, who uses optical tools to shed light on the role that phytoplankton diversity plays in oceanic biogeochemical cycles. She likes submesoscale processes, ocean observing technology (in-situ and remote), pretty silicoflagellates and good olive oil. She got her PhD at University of Southern California, and after a postdoc and research position at University of Maine, she joined Ocean Ecology Lab at NASA GSFC, where she is a USRA scientist and part of the PACE team.
Stephanie Schollaert Uz
Stephanie Schollaert Uz is an oceanographer who studies the response of ocean biology to physical forcing through remotely sensed satellite data, in situ measurements, model output and statistical reconstructions using proxies. Her research focuses on variability in global ocean color or chlorophyll concentrations, the pigment in microscopic phytoplankton, and the physical mechanisms causing those changes. Dr. Uz coordinates communication for the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) Project – an ocean color satellite being designed and built at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and planned for launch in 2022. She also works closely with NASA, NOAA and university scientists to translate important, complex climate science concepts into clear, engaging ClimateBits – short narrated visualizations that play on YouTube and Science On a Spheres installed at museums around the world. She has a PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science from the University of Maryland, an MS in Physical Oceanography from the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, and a BS in Oceanography from the U.S. Naval Academy.
Classroom Resources
Dead Zones Around the World
This lesson plan utilizes Google's My Maps and real data compiled by the World Resources Institute to examine eutrophicatic events around the United States and countries across the world.
What color is the ocean?
Simple spectrophotometer activity
Teachable Optics
Explore the interaction of light & water
Service Learning Project Guide for Rain Barrel Installation
Connecting students to community action inspired by scientific observations
GLOBE Observer app
Cloud observing as citizen science
Dead Zones Around the World
Use Google Maps to describe hypoxia trends across the world
Science Standards
Potential Next Generation Science Standards included in this Virtual Field Trip:
- LS2.C: Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations.
- MS-ESS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
- MS-ETS1-4. Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.
- HS-ETS1-2. Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.
- HS-ESS3-5. Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth systems.
- HS-LS2-7. Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.