Four high school students, a college student and a science teacher will learn to conduct research at sea during a four-day mission that started Thursday, Sept. 12 aboard a ship operated by Oregon State University.
Aboard the Oceanus are Avarie Owens of Waldport, Noah Goodwin-Rice of Newport, Abigail Kirby of North Bend, and Genevieve Coblentz-Strong, a senior at Sunset High School in Beaverton. Owens attends the online Baker Web Academy and takes classes at Oregon Coast Community College.
The teacher, Carisa Ketchen, is from Toledo Jr/Sr High School.
They are joined by Ashley Brust, who is in the aquarium science program at Oregon Coast Community College. Three OSU graduate students will be their mentors.
Participants will learn about marine-related careers, what it’s like to live and work at sea, and how to work as a team to accomplish a variety of research tasks, said Tracy Crews of Yachats, who manages Oregon Sea Grant’s marine education program and is coordinating their participation in the cruise.
“We’re trying to get the next generation of researchers excited to join the ranks,” said Crews.
The lead researchers will be Leigh Torres, a marine mammals scientist with Oregon Sea Grant and the OSU Extension Service; Sarah Henkel, a seafloor ecologist in OSU’s College of Science; and Jessica Porquez, a seabird researcher at OSU.
The students will learn to collect sediment and animals from the ocean floor at a future wave energy test site, learn how to collect plankton and deploy equipment that records oceanographic data at different depths. They will also identify and count seabirds and marine mammals off the coast and how researchers use camera-equipped drones to film whales. Torres hopes to launch a small boat from the Oceanus to collect whale poop. The samples would later be analyzed in a lab to understand the whales’ diet and stress levels.
The crew will launch an unmanned, 5½-foot sailboat built and decorated by students at the Career Tech High School in Lincoln City. It contains a GPS unit that will allow students to track the boat’s location. The aim is to for students to monitor forecasted wave and wind conditions and predict where the boat will go. A note inside with contact information will encourage anyone who might find the boat to correspond with the students at Career Tech.
The students on the cruise will write about their experiences on the Oregon Coast STEM Hub’s blog and on its Facebook page.
This is the third year that faculty with Oregon Sea Grant have led cruises on the Oceanus for students and teachers.
