Contents:
- News from the Ship: Ocean Watch set sail from Seattle and just arrived in the Galapagos Islands- but they took the long way there! Read about their exciting journey so far.
- Q&A: Every week we answer questions from classes all around the Americas. Today we answer questions about how this trip got started. See if questions from your class are answered this week.
- Shore Crew Action for the Day: Each week we’ll post an activity for you, your family or your class to do. This week learn how to start your own science notebook to follow the Around the Americas expedition.
- Do and Share: After you make your own science notebook, send us a picture!
- Conclusion: You are welcome to put in the comments section: questions from your class for the Ocean Watch team, ideas for an activity, questions for other classrooms, or to respond to any of today’s post!
Teachers:- if you have:
5-10 minutes this week, share with your class the News from the Ship, Q&A section, and have your class submit a question of their own!
~45 minutes, add on the activity
Welcome Aboard!
News from the ship:
Note to teachers: as you go share this with your class, follow along on a map or globe.
Hello! It’s been big last year for the entire crew of Ocean Watch. Ocean Watch left Seattle, Washington on May 31, 2009. After leaving Seattle, Ocean Watch sailed sailed north to Alaska, and went east through the Northwest Passage and the Canadian Arctic. After making it through the passage, the crew went south down the east coast of Canada, the United States, and South America. They sailed around the southern tip of Chile called Cape Horn in January, and are sailing north, up the west coast of South America. They just stopped this week in the Galapagos Islands and the final stop on their entire trip will be Seattle in June 2010!
But they are doing a lot more than just sailing. There are several science experiments on Ocean Watch, allowing the crew and scientists to learn more about our oceans. They are studying jellyfish, clouds, sea water quality and they even deployed three buoys in the Arctic to measure the currents.
Questions to the Crew:
Every week we answer questions from classes all around the Americas. See if questions from your class are answered this week!
These first two questions are from Ms. Messer’s students in the Falkland Islands, and both are answered by Mark Schrader, Captain of Ocean Watch:
Q: Why did you choose to explore the world?
A: Because the world is a fascinating place. The ocean connects all of us, no matter where we live. It is a fantastic and free highway leading to interesting people and places. I grew up on a farm in the middle of our country (in Nebraska) but when I was old enough to learn about how the early explorers discovered the ‘world’ and sailed to different places I became fascinated with the idea of the ocean as a highway, open to all who cared to learn how to navigate its surface. My interest was more about exploring the ocean rather than exploring the world.
Q: Why did you choose a yacht to do this trip rather than a bigger science vessel?
A: The choice of vessel was made for two primary reasons. As a crew we are sailors, and we have enjoyed sailing smaller boats all over the world so the choice to look for a strong sailing vessel capable of safely carrying a crew of six or eight for thousands of miles was a natural one. Secondly, big ships are very expensive to own, operate or charter. Large vessels need lots of expensive fuel and require a much larger crew. Using as little fossil fuel as possible to accomplish our mission is important to us.
This question is from Ms. White’s 5th grade class in Halifax, Nova Scotia:
Q: Did the earthquake and tsunami in Chile last month impact Ocean Watch?
A: Ocean Watch was in a yacht club in Valparaiso, Chile during its stay. They left Valparaiso and sailed towards Lima, Peru just 2 days before the earthquake. This meant the boat and crew were sailing when the earthquake and tsunami occurred. Because they were at sea they didn’t feel the earthquake, and the tsunami did go past them when they were sailing. A tsunami wave at sea is very low- often times just a foot above normal sea levels- this isn’t noticed at all when sailing. When the tsunami reaches shallower waters near shore the waves get closer together, slow down, and get much taller; this is when a tsunami can be dangerous. The yacht club Ocean Watch had been anchored at in Valparaiso did have some damage, and a lot of the boats that were there were damaged too, but since Ocean Watch was at sea they didn’t feel the tsunami at all. In fact, they didn’t even know that there was an earthquake or a tsunami until friends and family emailed them.
If your class has a question for the crew, put it in the comment field at the end of this post, then check back next week to see if your question is answered!
Shore Crew Action for the Day:
Open the below photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr
As Ocean Watch travels up the west coast and back to Seattle, you can follow along and be part of our Shore Crew! Part of sailing and science is keeping a log, notebook, or journal. Scientists keep a science notebook in the lab and in the field; it’s a place to record what they see, questions they have, how an experiment is set up, and the data they collect. On Ocean Watch not just the scientist keeps a notebook, but a lot of other people do too. The whole crew helps keep a sailing notebook, called the ship’s log; in this book each day the crew records the boat’s speed, direction and location, notes about the weather including the temperature, wind speed and direction, and information about the crew.
Why is it called a ship’s log? A long time ago, before there were watches, GPS, or speedometers to measure speed, sailors still needed to figure out how fast they were sailing in order to figure out where they were. To determine their speed early sailors would throw a piece of wood, or a log, overboard from the front of the boat. This log would have a long string attached, and as the log would float in one spot in the water the ship would sail past, and the sailors would time how long it would take for a certain length of the string to get pulled out from the spool; this would tell them the ship’s speed. Because this “log” would be used to determine the ship’s speed, the book where this information was keep became the “log book”. Even though ships don’t use a piece of wood to measure their speed today, the book is still called a logbook.
To be an official “Ocean Watcher” you can make your own notebook to use as you follow the Around the Americas expedition.
To create your own science notebook or ship’s log for following the expedition:
- Find a notebook you can use. A spiral notebook works great. You can also staple blank pages together to make your own book.
- Make the first page be your table of contents. Use a ruler to make columns. Make 1 narrow column (the width of a ruler is great) on the left for the date and another narrow column on the right for the page number. The wide column in the middle is for the title of each entry.
- Decorate the cover. It could have a ship, an ocean scene, pictures of the route, your favorite sea animal, a map—it’s up to you!
Now that you have made your notebook, it’s time to make your first entry! Scientists often start with their own ideas- what they already know, and what questions they have. You can start out on the first open page of your notebook with what you know about the ocean. Answer these questions in your notebook:
-What do you already know about the ocean?
-What is your favorite part of the ocean? Why?
-What is your personal experience with the ocean?
-What do you think are some of the biggest threats facing our oceans today?
Do and Share:
Now that you have made your notebook, let us know what you did! You can email us at a picture of the cover you designed, or send us your answer to one of the questions! Emails and pictures can be sent to education@aroundtheamericas.org.
Conclusion:
Add a comment to this post by clicking on the comment link below the post title. In this comments field you can ask questions of the Ocean Watch team, and then check back to see if your question was answered in next week’s post. You can also send us ideas for an activity, answers from your science notebook, or questions you have for other classrooms that are part of the Shore Team!
Resources:
For more information on Science Notebooks, including ideas for teachers, pictures of scientist’s and student’s notebooks, and ideas of how to use science notebooks in your class, see the Science Notebooks website. Teachers may also be interested in Using Science Notebooks in Elementary Classrooms, by Michael P. Klentschy (NSTA Press, 2008), or Writing in Science, by Betsy Rupp Fulwiler (Heinemann, 2007).
We’ll see you next week!
