My Ship Awaits

Well I arrived in Houston safely under humid and rainy skies. The ride to Galveston was longer than I thought but Bruce, an environmental teacher from New Jersey, and I talked about where we taught, classes, and the excitement about our upcoming adventure. Normally there is one teacher per leg, but since our mission on the Oregon II went from 3 legs to 2 legs it changed things up a bit, including our new departure date.

Arriving on the ship tonight we noticed a sign on the door “Friday 7/2 shipping out 10:00 am”. The newly upgraded hurricane Alex has delayed our departure by one day, at least for now. This will give me time to explore the ship a little without waking the sleeping crew. This is a 24-hour workstation so it is very important that everyone is quiet in the halls. Speaking of quiet, I am turning in, in my next to the kitchen stateroom.

3 days ETD, Tropical Storm Alex, and delayed posts

With my time to depart on my journey getting closer I have found myself checking out the weather in the Gulf of Mexico and looking at the logs from other Teacher At Sea participants. One thing about the logs that I have noticed is about a 4-6 day delay in posts from the time they are written, approved by the XO (executive officer) and the chief scientist for accuracy. I am hoping that I will be able to post personal blogs each day but with approvals and the fact that the bandwidth is working on satellite, this may be a problem. I really won't know until I am on board how much internet time I will get and how long it will take to load a single photo. For video and audio podcasts I will most likely have to post those once I hit land on July 17. Again, it will be a wait and see.

If you would like to check out the logs of other TAS participants (and my official log will be here) go to the NOAA link in the right hand column of this site (or click on the blue highlighted logs above). Once there you will want to select the 2010 field season. Names are highlighted once the mission begins. Some of my favorites so far are the teachers aboard the Pisces (Nicolle has a great story about a dead sperm whale). Click on the participants name for logs, clicking on the ship will give you the ship dimensions.

9 days ETD for NOAA

The other day my 'official' package came in the mail with my acceptance letter to the NOAA Teacher At Sea Program. Also in the packet was a very nice blue Teacher At Sea embroidered T-shirt, a fanny pack, a children's story book written by a former TAS, and some information on Ocean Literacy and Climate Literacy.

Today I received another email from the chief scientist about some last minute details of items that we may want to bring. (The first leg ships out tomorrow, but I have another 9 days to pack). The first leg will not be able to do laundry for the first three days as they travel through possible oil contaminated seas. This could cause problems for the water system on board the Oregon II (the ship I will be traveling and working aboard). I am sure this will be the case for me too, but it will be the last 3-4 days of my mission as I will be departing from Texas and sailing to Mississippi.

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Have you heard about NOAA's Teacher at Sea? I hadn't heard of it until June 2009. How did I hear about it? That is a question that I am asked a lot about many of the projects that I do for professional growth and for classroom activities.

Spring 2009 I was asked to be on a Science Ohio Graduation Test Rangefinder Committee. Although it involved sitting in a secure room for 2 1/2 days reading sample test answers to design a rubric, I thought it would be fun to meet new people. One such person sitting next to me, Chris M. told me how he liked to travel too and he would prefer not to pay for travel. "How do you find those types of trips?" I asked. Then he told me about Teacher at Sea. I tucked that piece of information away (and on a notepad) to come back to it later.

December 2009 I started working on my Teacher at Sea application. (Deadlines are the end of December so bookmark the website now so you can apply for the 2011 missions!) I had travel plans for summer 2010 with Earth Expeditions, a program through Miami University (I will talk more about that one later) but I thought I would apply for TAS this year so that the following year I may have a better chance.

March 2010 I received notification that I was selected!!!! This is a competitive application process so I put my Earth Expedition trip on hold to participate in the NOAA Teacher at Sea Program.