NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada is a state-of-the-art fisheries survey vessel that studies a wide range of marine life, sea birds and ocean conditions along the U.S. West Coast. Image Credit: NOAA
NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada is a state-of-the-art fisheries survey vessel that studies a wide range of marine life, sea birds and ocean conditions along the U.S. West Coast. Image Credit: NOAA
I’m preparing to mobilize with a team of scientists on board the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada on July 2. We’ll spend the next nine days cruising from San Francisco through three National Marine Sanctuaries — Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones, and Monterey Bay — collecting water samples and looking for seabirds and marine mammals.
National Marine Sanctuaries along the California Coast. Image Credit: Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary
The expedition is part of a 15-year project called Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies (ACCESS), which aims to study linkages between weather, oceanographic conditions, and climate change within the sanctuary system. One of the main things they will observe and monitor is prey distribution in order to help identify areas where seabirds and whales might be heading for their next meal.
By locating places where foraging might overlap with human activity, sanctuary managers can help reduce the risk of harm to wildlife — ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear is a major problem scientists are working to address.
Each year, three to five ACCESS cruises are conducted; over time, the data collected on these expeditions may reveal trends, which might help shed light on how climate change impacts the ocean, and subsequently all of us. Extreme warm water events are a particularly important area for study, because the temperature fluctuations disrupt the food web and can lead to major die-offs.
ACCESS is a partnership between NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries and Point Blue, a nonprofit conservation science organization founded in 1965. Collaborations with at least 10 public and private organizations also aids in processing and analyzing samples and data collected during expeditions.
For a series we’ve titled Sea Sentries, I’ll be posting regular updates with photos, interviews, and stories to help deliver our readers out into our National Marine Sanctuaries, so check back regularly and join me at sea!
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. She has spent the last four years writing about ocean health, technology and she is a 2018 lead science communication fellow for the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus. Her work can be found in Atlantic Monthly, IEEE Earthzine, and Ensia Magazine.
The water to the right of the knitting project is the Pacific Ocean—churning behind Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus, a 64-meter (211-foot) ship that can accommodate a 31-person science team (including student interns, educators, scientists, engineers, communication professionals) in addition to the 17-member permanent ship crew.
The Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus is a 211 foot former East German “fishing boat” fully outfitted for scientific exploration. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live
The E/V Nautilus’ mission is to explore unknown and poorly understood places in our oceans, developing and using technologies that enable us to push the boundaries of ocean exploration. These expeditions are shared with the public via telepresence technology and a wide-range of outreach activities for a global audience.
Much of this exploration relies on robotics. Whenever E/V Nautilus’ remotely operated vehicles, Hercules and Argus, are deployed, the data and video they capture are streamed back to their audience in real-time. This allows scientists, students, and viewers all over the world to travel with the Nautilus to locations normally inaccessible to humans.
I joined the E/V Nautilus Corps of Exploration as a science communication fellow during the 2017 expedition in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. We helped sanctuary managers learn about areas they had never been able to access before, leading to discoveries of new species of deep sea sponges and a better understanding of this special underwater national park. You can read more about this mission here and here.
In late August, I rejoined the team as lead science communication fellow when the Nautilus launched a multi-year SUBSEA (Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog) Research Program, a partnership between NASA, NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, and various academic centers. The work will took place at Lōʻihi Seamount off the coast of Hawaii. You can read about the 2018 season and all the exciting projects underway from May through November here. There’s plenty of time to work on this knit-along project while watching live footage from the Pacific Ocean!
Feel free to use any shade of yarn you like, but the color used here was part of my inspiration for the pattern. The geometric design repeats endlessly like waves moving across the vast surface of the ocean, which covers 70 percent of Earth, but remains largely unexplored today. Thanks to programs like those found on board E/V Nautilus, the majority of our home planet won’t remain a mystery forever.
The blanket is super easy to execute with enough variation to keep you interested from beginning to end. I’ve made it in several sizes and love the weight when made with Cascadia Eco+ yarn because it’s so warm and squishy. You can easily adjust to use less yarn and make it any size you like.
Share your progress with us while we explore using #NautilusLive #NautilusKnitAlong and #OceanBlanket!
Pacific Ocean Blanket
Supplies:
One 42” Circular Needle in size US 8
5 skeins Cascadia Eco+ Peruvian wool yarn, 478 yards/250 grams, (any bulky weight yarn you like the feel of will do). Color pictured: #3101 (I’m making a very large blanket for my tall husband, but you can make yours any size you like!)
2 Stitch markers
Abbreviations:
Place Marker, PM
Slip Marker, SM
Getting started: Cast on 240 stitches with long tail method. The pattern is composed in sets of 8 plus a border of 12 stitches on either end. You can make it wider or narrower if you prefer.
Garter Stitch Border:
Knit every row until you have 12 garter ridges. Then begin the following pattern until the blanket is as long as you’d like. Repeat border, knitting every row until you have 12 garter stitches.
Pattern
Row 1: K12 (for the border), PM, then, repeat [P1, K7] until 12 stitches remain, PM, K12
Row 2: K12, SM, K1, Repeat [P5, K3] until last 7 before marker, P5, K2, SM, K12
Row 3: K12, SM, P3, Repeat [K3, P5] until last 5 before marker, K3, P2, SM, K12
Row 4: K12, SM, K3, Repeat [P1, K7] until last 5 before marker, P1, K4, SM, K12
Row 5: K12, SM, P4, Repeat [K1, P7] until last 4 before marker, K1 P3, SM, K12
Row 6: Repeat row 4
Row 7: Repeat row 3
Row 8: Repeat row 2
Row 9: Repeat row 1
Row 10: K12, SM, Repeat [K1, P7] until marker , SM, K12
Comments or questions about the pattern? Here’s a PDF of this article and pattern and be sure to visit www.nautiluslive.org and check out their education blog for other fun activities like Nautilus Bingo and Deep Sea Coloring Pages — there’s something for everyone! Email: jennywoodmanwrites@gmail.com Happy Knitting! For personal use only. All rights reserved.
Experts believe climate change is a science communication emergency. Mounting evidence suggests that action now may be our only hope. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
A traditional view of science literacy focuses on information and facts — on textbook knowledge, but critical science literacy emphasizes awareness of how science is practiced, from the collaborative nature of research and how science is funded to the ways we evaluate what we know to be true at any given moment.
A science literate public is less concerned with scientific concepts rotely-memorized; rather, they are armed with enough understanding to think critically about the world around them and to participate in a democratic society. They are skeptical of sensational science headlines and carefully consider the sources of the information they consume. And, most importantly, they possess agency and autonomy, which strengthens our commitment to provide tools for decision-making without manipulation or covert persuasion.
Informed citizens make better decisions.
However, an ever-changing media landscape creates significant barriers between the public and the scientific understanding necessary to inspire meaningful action on climate change.
While climate change makes headlines daily, there are fewer (and fewer) journalists assigned to science and environmental beats. This combined with the deluge of data and information widely available on the internet makes critical science literacy fundamental in an age where science and technology pervade almost all aspects of our lives.
Evidence of sea level rise, hypoxic zones, and ocean acidification are just a few of the indicators that suggest the ocean is inextricably linked with climate change. Factoring in other human-caused stressors like plastic and pollution adds an even greater sense of urgency to the task of communicating about how oceanic changes impact our future and the future of many other species.
Experts believe climate change is a science communication emergency. Mounting evidence suggests that action now may be our only hope.
The ocean poses additional challenges for engagement. Over 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered by water, but most of the ocean is out of sight and out of mind for the students, activists, and change-makers who might help mitigate threats to our vital ocean ecosystems.
Because of this disconnect between awareness and the scope of threats to our oceans, vast expanses of our planet remain unexplored and unknown. In the deep, cold waters, there are mountains that would tower over the Himalayas and bioluminescent sea creatures who use tools. There are species that coordinate with other species to hunt and survive in the harshest of environments. Currently, at least half of the anticancer drugs on the market come from marine resources, so ancient sea sponges and cold-water corals we’re discovering now may unlock medical breakthroughs the likes of which we can only imagine.
How do you build literacy and engage with something so distant, with a place that seems out of our reach? We’re working to build emotional investment in ocean issues with multimedia storytelling and informal science education.
Science is a human endeavor and we are storytellers constantly searching for the connective tissue to make an audience keep reading, keep looking, and — most importantly — keep thinking.
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest; she is a 2018 lead science communication fellow for the Exploration Vessel Nautilus. Follow her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
Life on a blue planet. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
USNS Comfort, a 1000 bed hospital ship, on the way to provide disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 2005. Image Credit: Henry J. Holcomb
Left to right: Borman, Holcomb, Anders, and Lovell on the deck of the USS Yorktown. Image Credit: AP Photo/Bob Schultz.
The Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus is a 211 foot former East German “fishing boat” fully outfitted for scientific exploration. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live
Woodman leaving San Francisco Bay on the E/V Nautilus in 2017. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
As a kid, I sprawled out on the shag carpet in our family room reading Nancy Drew mysteries and watching Star Trek. My childish imaginings were punctuated by the steady rhythmic sound of an electric typewriter clicking and humming in the nearby study where my dad wrote at home. He is a newspaper man. Over the span of his 45 year career he covered everything from the local school board meetings to state capitals, from the Apollo 8 splashdown to the revitalization of the Naval shipyards in Philadelphia.
I spent my childhood loitering in bustling and grungy news rooms, coloring in the weekday comic strips and waiting for dad to finish this or that important thing. By the late 80s, he was on the foreign desk at the Philadelphia Inquirer where I “helped” edit a story about a young Mikhail Gorbachev leaping up a flight of stairs two at time — the blinking cursor of the Atex computer screen is forever burned in my memory.
Watching him finagle time in the locomotive car of freight trains, on Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters, on US Navy aircraft carriers and on a thousand-bed hospital ship taught meaningful lessons about writing, although I didn’t realize it at the time.
Storytelling takes shape when you get out there: see the drama of boring everyday life unfold in front of you; smell the smoke and diesel fuel; get dirty.
I suppose it’s not surprising that I’ve spent the last few years cornering NOAA administrators and scientists at conventions and meetings, handing out my business card and asking for passage on any ship that would take me. I researched and applied for fellowships and writing residencies.
Finally, my efforts paid off. In 2017, I joined Oceanographer Robert Ballard’s Corps of Exploration on Board the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus as a science communication fellow. We spent two weeks exploring deep underwater canyons and the edge of the continental shelf in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary with the Nautilus’s beloved robotic duo, Argus and Hercules.
The sanctuary lies off the coast of California, northwest of San Francisco. The sanctuary territory was expanded in 2015 to 1286 square miles of largely unknown deep sea habitats. During over 90 hours of diving with the robots, we found deep sea sponge and coral communities, along with a host of life — octopuses, skates, and catsharks — clinging to and lingering about the rocky substrate at the bottom of the ocean. It was a breathtaking spectacle to witness scientists and sanctuary managers discover new species and gain a deeper understanding of this precious natural area. Their excitement was joyful and contagious.
This summer, I’m heading back to out to sea. Through the Proteus platform, we’ll experiment with a combination of essays, live field reports, graphics, photos, and whatever we can get our hands on to help transport you, our readers, to remote and wonderful places in our own ocean world.
In July, I’ll return to California on the NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada for a seabird and marine mammal survey. The cruise is part of a collaboration between three National Marine Sanctuaries (Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones, and Monterey Bay) and Point Blue Conservation Science via the Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies (ACCESS) cruises. It will be the 15th year of data collection and observation, helping provide a baseline for understanding sanctuary waters and the impacts of humans and climate change on these regions.
In September, I rejoin the team on board the E/V Nautilus as a lead science communication fellow. This expedition is a joint mission with NASA to explore underwater volcanoes with robots at the Lōihi Seamount. By watching how ocean explorers work remotely from the safety of their vessels in dangerous and unfamiliar environments, NASA can be better prepared for future space missions.
We’ll also be covering George Divoky’s 44th field season in the Arctic where he studies a small colony of Black Guillemots. These seabirds spend most of the year out on the ice; they come to Cooper Island every summer to breed. While George set out to study guillemots in 1975, he also ended up conducting one of the longest running studies of sea ice and climate change along the way. This Plumb Line special series is titled Arctic Change.
With this, our first season at sea and all our future projects we’ll work together to build critical science literacy and to engage the public with the ocean–our planet’s life support system.
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