Teachers "make a splash" with ocean buoy launch off Olympic Coast, WA

NANOOS UW NEMO, off La Push, WA (47.97°N, 124.95°W)

Four educators from Oregon and Washington will be taking part in a research cruise to deploy ocean observing equipment off La Push WA that will inspire learning about how the changing ocean conditions impact ocean life in the Pacific Northwest. The deployment will occur in NOAA's Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, near Quileute tribal lands.

Joining the scientists aboard the University of Washington research vessel Thomas G. Thompson will be classroom teachers Michael Kenney of Lake Quinault Middle School and Benjamin Ewing of Toldeo Jr/Sr High School, and informal educators Rick Baker from Whidbey Watershed Stewards and Cindy Bryden from Haystack Rock Awareness Program.
The teachers will use this opportunity to learn more about the oceanographic research that is addressing several critical issues impacting Pacific Northwest coastal and inland waters.  Educators will incorporate the research, data, and their own cruise experiences into their classrooms and education programs.

The primary purpose of this cruise is to deploy a moored buoy system (consists of two moorings: a surface mooring- Cha?Ba, which means “Whale Tail” in Quileute language and a subsurface mooring) with sensors to monitor ocean and weather conditions. A Seaglider, an autonomous underwater vehicle, is also part of the observing array and will be deployed as well. The Seaglider will run tracks near the buoy, extending our knowledge of ocean conditions through space and time. These observing assets are collectively referred to as NEMO (Northwest Enhanced Moored Observatory), a program led by Dr. John Mickett from the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (APL-UW).

While at sea, the team will also conduct water and plankton sampling as part of Washington State’s ocean acidification monitoring network through the Washington Ocean Acidification Center, co-led by Dr. Jan Newton of APL-UW. Sampling will occur at nine stations, from buoy site, into the Strait, and all the way back to Seattle.

The NEMO observing array and the ocean acidification monitoring network are part of our regional ocean observing system, the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), a regional member of U.S Integrated Ocean Observing System. Data from the buoys can be viewed in near real-time from the NANOOS Visualization System, NVS.

NANOOS’s Education and Outreach team worked with the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and Hatfield Marine Science Center education programs to bring the teachers onboard the cruise. They will be blogging about their experiences at the NANOOS blog.