Questions Submitted by Medina High School
Questions from Tyler, Cece, Veronica, and the whole class
Judy, what are the scientists on board opinions on global climate shift and can any of the data you're collecting be used towards supporting or refuting global warming?
The scientists on board don't all agree on whether global warming is happening. In part that is because we are not sure how humans are changing clouds. Yes, data from this experiment will help. I'm sure that data from this experiment will be studied for many years after it has ended!
Judy, are there any language barriers to overcome with locals or even other scientists on board?
What an interesting question! On the island of Antigua the people born there really have created their own dialect. It's a combination of English, Slang, and African language. However, they only speak it to each other. One day at the hotel I asked a staff member to call a taxi for me. When the taxi driver came he checked in at the desk and had a long conversation with the lady, and I couldn't understand a word of what was said! Then the taxi driver turned to me and said very clearly "Hello, I am your cab driver, can I get your bags?" When I went to the Operation Center on the island, I met a Polish graduate student and her professor. She spoke to me in English, and then turned and talked with her Professor in Polish. That kind of situation is normal, but the work is done in English. Everyone has very good humor about his or her own language strengths and differences. My new friends on the ship who were not raised in the U.S. find it to be a lot of fun to share pronunciations, and to help each other acquire new vocabulary. For example, my friend Sergio (originally from Santiago, Chile) told me today that the origin of the word "Pacific" is from the Spanish word "Pacifico" which means, "calm". It is also true that the Pacific Ocean is a much calmer ocean than the Atlantic!
Paquita and other scientists, will there be any opportunities like this for graduating seniors?
I am not aware of programs targeted for graduating seniors. Often there are college students on board, but they are already in college. For one day at the land Ops, graduate students were given the opportunity to run the experiments, for one day, under the leadership of Jennifer Davison (U of Ill) and under the supervision of Bob Rauber.
What is the final objective (or a few of the main objectives) of gathering this data? What are the possible applications of this research? What have you learned?
These are very open-ended questions. For the first one, I would just refer you to the description of RICO. A possible application, is improved weather forecasting. We still need to analyze the data to know what we can learn from it. - Paquita
Were any of the researchers being paid to participate in this research (through grants, stipends, etc...) And what is the average starting salary for scientist abord a research vessel? Do you need to be independently wealthy to be a research scientist or just have good funding/backing?
Just about everyone was being paid to participate. About one year and a half ago, there was a call for proposals for RICO. The people involved with those that got funded, are now the participants. The scientist salaries varied, from about 20K/year for the graduate students, on up. I have no idea what the average would be. Very few research scientists are independently wealthy, almost everyone relies on getting proposals funded. - Paquita
Cece: How will you incorporate these studies into the classroom?
Well Cece, Here are some of my ideas so far. - Judy
- I have decided that my sixth graders need to become more aware of the technology involved with this research mission. There were so many ways of collecting information from the environment that I had never heard of! I think this is important information to share with my students.
- I'm also taking the data from the radiosondes to my students to see if together we can discover what are the most common set of factors that occur prior to the onset of rain. In other words, I'm still trying to find out what conditions happen simultaneously that together make the best predictors of rain. However, this is extremely ambitious! This is the same question that is at the heart of the research mission. I'm quite certain that the radiosonde information will not be enough to answer this question, but at least it will be a start. I don't know how clearly it's been stated before, but one goal the scientists hope to achieve is to answer the question "Just why and when exactly does it rain?" If they can answer this question, just imagine how much it could improve weather forecasting!
- I'm also thinking about creating a unit on bats! Don't laugh now, bats have a natural radar and I think it would be fun to learn more about these creatures and to use this study to generate interest in how the different kinds of radar work. Bruce Bartram (the radar specialist I met on board the S.J.) suggested this and I think it's a great idea.
- I've also learned from Sara Tucker that a study on optics would be a good thing too. Sara told me she did a sixth-grade project on optics that started the ball rolling for her lidar career.
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