Andy Bedingfield and Calan Taylor are high school teachers participating in the Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program on board the R/V Atlantis. Below are more selections from their daily journals:
July 23 – Andy
It is Tuesday at 3:00 PM and my shift is just starting. We are back on 15 minute shifts on the ISIIS. This is our high definition camera system that we tow behind the boat and lower and raise as we travel. There are two jobs when we are running this system, “flying the ISIIS,” and running the winch. Flying the ISIIS means watching the computer control panel in the main lab and using the radio to tell the winch operator out on the back deck whether to pay out cable, haul it in, and how fast. For instance, I am sitting in the lab typing this and Megan, the PhD student who is currently flying ISIIS just picked up her radio and said, “winch, lab please pay out at five zero,” and the winch operator called back, “copy that, paying out at five zero.” This mean that the ISIIS just got to its minimum depth of 10 meters, and the winch operator needed to stop pulling cable in, reverse the winch, and start sending it out again so that the ISIIS will start going down again. Once the ISIIS gets down to its maximum depth of 100 meters, Megan will call the winch again and have them start hauling in again so that it will start to rise towards the surface. We did this all night last night from 10:00PM to 3:00AM. You would think this would get monotonous, and it does, but we have figured out a pretty good system to minimize the boringness of it. We are in two member teams, and we all work one 15 minute shift per hour. Something seems to be pretty magic about this schedule. The hours really seem to fly by.
July 24 – Andy
It is 8:00 PM right now, and the night crew is very happy to be on their last 3:00PM to 3:00AM shift! We started the night at station #1, which is the closest one to Newport, and we used all of our data collection methods.
July 24 – Calan
We caught a decent size squid this morning (roughly 6 inches). I put it in a tank and watched it swim around for a bit which was fascinating. It’s eye was huge and seemed to be looking right at me. The biologists assure me that squid intelligence pales in comparison to octopus but the eyes still freaked me out a bit.
July 25 – Calan
There is an artist on the ship named Sarah. She does mixed media that involves lo-fi photography using cyanoprinted photograms. She prints these images onto steel and attempts to represent time in various manners. Today she taught me how to do the photogram process. I made a print of a squid and shrimp that we caught yesterday. Sara gave me the info for a company that sells kits to make the prints. I think kids would get a kick out of it, and I’m pretty sure I’ll include it as part of my curriculum.
July 25 – Andy
Wow, last day of the cruise! We just have to finish off towing in to Newport, and the science work will be done for the cruise.
After lunch, the other teacher and I cal had a meeting with two of the principal investigators, Kelly and Bob. I was very impressed with them throughout the cruise, and I really couldn’t speak more highly of them. They were both very nice and helped Cal and I learn a lot of marine science. We had a great discussion about how Cal and I can create a curriculum based on the science that they do, and we are excited to get started.
“We had a great discussion about how Cal and I can create a curriculum based on the science that they do, and we are excited to get started.”
– Andy Bedingfield on the last day of the cruise
Calan Taylor teaches Physics, Chemistry, and Physical Science at Bandon High School and Andy Bedingfield teaches Science at Taft 7-12 High School in Lincoln City. They are part of the Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program on the R/V Atlantis cruise taking place July 13-27, 2019.
