Archive | September, 2013

I drove up recently to work in the lab with my co-PI Dr. Brad Seibel at the University of Rhode Island.  Our goal was to determine how long it would take to get 165 gallons of seawater to drop in pH by bubbling the seawater with pure carbon dioxide (CO2).  Our goal was about a 0.4 drop in pH after 24 hours of bubbling.  We reached our goal within 15 minutes!  It was unexpected, but we now know we can manipulate pH rather quickly in large volumes of seawater for our experiments we will be running this field season in Antarctica.

Trial CO2 manipulation. We filled the 165 gallon tank with seawater, then cooled it to 2 degrees Celcius (about the temperature of seawater during the Antarctic summer….brrrr) using a chiller unit (shown in the left of the picture, protected by a wooden crate) to circulate and cool the water. Then we bubbled the seawater with carbon dioxide.  And voila, instant ocean acidification! Photo by Brad Seibel

We have been in high gear ordering equipment and supplies that we will need in order to conduct our experiments in the field at Palmer Station, Antarctica.  These supplies include items ranging from small filters, which we will use to filter plankton out of the seawater so we can determine what kind and how much algae (phytoplankton) are present for the krill to feed on, to large 165 gallon tanks to fill with seawater and bubble with carbon dioxide (CO2) in order to change the pH in our experimental treatments with Antarctic krill.

Boxes, boxes, boxes…just one day’s shipment of laboratory and field supplies I received recently. Every single piece of equipment is extremely important to complete our experiments at Palmer Station, Antarctica. Photo by Grace Saba

Our next steps are to test out some of the lab equipment to ensure everything is working properly, train the members of our field team, and to make sure we have spare parts for everything because there is no convenient “science store” in Antarctica!

We had an extremely successful teacher/scientist workshop in Kansas July 16-17th.  The participating Kansas High School teachers were very enthusiastic and receptive to Project PARKA.  They teach at a combination of both rural and urban schools all over the state of Kansas. Of the 22 educators participating, 21 teach various courses in biology, chemistry, and environmental sciences. The one English teacher participating, A. Moon-Bradley, will oversee a project-related blog written by her students. Please check out their blogs (coming soon) on this website! They all worked really hard during the 2-day workshop to learn about the science background of the project and to go through each of the 4 lesson plans that they will bring back to their students this Fall.

The teachers learned a lot of background information about oceanography, Antarctic food webs, climate change, and ocean acidification. Here they are having a group discussion about how ocean acidification affects marine organisms. Photo by Grace Saba

Teachers worked in groups to learn the lesson plans they will soon be teaching their students.  Photo by Grace Saba

Teachers checking pH of different solutions as part of the ocean acidification lesson plan. Photo by Grace Saba

The participants of the workshop (and the overall Project PARKA program) included myself, Kristin Hunter-Thomson (Rutgers COSEE NOW outreach coordinator), and the following Kansas teachers:

S. Borjon, Shawnee Heights High School

C. Cochran, Mission Valley High School

K. Denham, Veritas Christian School

S. Elangikal, Topeka High School

W. Elkins, University of Kansas

C. Ferree, Emporia High School

D. Finch, Council Grove High School

K. Gaines, Topeka High School

J. Hamilton, Silver Lake High School

M. Henderson, Burlingame High School

L. Houston, Fort Scott High School

R. Hutson, Blue Valley High School

M. Laughlin, Valley Heights Junior Senior High School

E. Meredith, Hayden Catholic High School

A. Moon-Bradley, Marais des Cygnes Valley High School

S. Nicholson, Quinter High School

J. Parker, Pawnee Heights High School

D. Rice, Marais des Cygnes Valley High School

B. Roper, Shawnee Heights High School

S. Scoggin, Marais des Cygnes Valley High School

A. Stinebaugh, Central Heights High School

F. Wecker, Emporia High School

In addition to the lesson plans, our science team will be doing live calls from Palmer Station to the participating Kansas High School classrooms during our field season in January 2014.  The students will take what they learn from the lesson plans and the live discussions with scientists to conduct independent laboratory projects, which they will present to each other and the scientists at the Student Symposium in April 2014.