Educational Goals
Polar Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating
The SCINI project is hosting PolarTREC teacher Cameo Slaybaugh from SouthEastern Cooperative Educational Programs (SECEP). We wish we could take Ms. Slaybaugh’s entire class with us, but since we can’t we will have their remote presence instead. Her students, Sharon, Jasmine, Antonio, Michael, Garon, Wayne, Rashad, and DeQuire are building an ROV named SARA (SECEP’s Aquatic Robotic Apparatus) for us to take to the Antarctic. You can read Ms. Slaybaugh’s daily adventures here, ask us questions here and join our live Webinars here.
Our PolarTREC teacher of 2007, Mindy Bell, builds a sling load of equipment to be transported by helicopter.
Second Opportunity School
Local Monterey and Santa Cruz students, led by Charmaine Ryan, are creating prayer flags for us to fly in the katabatic winds of Antarctica. Their good wishes for the many countries of the world echo the international nature of the Antarctic Treaty. The gravity driven winds off the continent are paralleled by the density driven currents that flow off the continental shelf of the Southern Ocean as Antarctic Bottom Water. ABW pushes the deep water circulation of the global oceans, mixing the oceans over a time scale of 800 years, and connecting the shores of Monterey Bay to those of the McMurdo Sound.
This baby Weddell seal is representative of one of the many resources protected by the international Antarctic Treaty. And he’s very curious about the ROV tether coiled near the ice hole.