Dan Tomlin, Manhattan Middle School teacher and CIRES Teacher-at-Sea
What is going on?
It is December 14, and on January 18, I am off to Christchurch, New Zealand as a CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences) Teacher at Sea, very exciting! It will be like running off to join the circus without the elephants and whales instead.
I am going with Geophysicist Anne Sheehan to put down thirty seismograph stations on the ocean floor around New Zealand. Our first week we will be touring the South Island by car and checking out all the points of geologic interest and meeting with scientists who study earthquakes and the relationship between the earth’s crust and mantle. The remaining five weeks I will be on board the Thomas G. Thompson Research Vessel as it sails around New Zealand placing the seismograph, earthquake recorders on the ocean floor. http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/technology/vessels/thompson/thompson.html
Yes, earthquakes occur on the ocean floor. Wow!
I need your help.
I am contacting you to get help with two things. My role is to develop a blog for students to see first hand science in action.
I am interested in your feedback as to what you would like to see on the blog.
In addition I am going to do ten experiments on board during the voyage that students and teachers design from around the country. I would like to do five from my classes and peers classes at Boulder Valley School District in Colorado and five from other districts. Ideas could include: a measurement of salinity at various depths in the water, measurements of weather, effects of pressure on Styrofoam cups at various depths in the water, does your resting heart rate change on a boat? …etc.
Blog back with your ideas.
Who am I ?
I am DT a 7th and 8th grade science teacher at Manhattan School for the Arts and Academics in Boulder, Colorado. http://schools.bvsd.org/manhattan/new_site/
Geology is my undergrad degree and my master’s degree is in environmental science with an emphasis in engineering. My class at school is a lot of fun and we literally have a zoo; an iguana, three chinchillas, a rat, two dwarf hamsters (very mean), a corn snake, two ferrets, a bearded dragon baby, an African-clawed frog and two gold fish. And don’t forget about 150 students
My son is an eighth grade student at my school and my wife is an exercise physiologist. I am 46 years old and this is my twenty first year teaching secondary science. Tom de la Torre a student that was part of the National Science Funded grant program GK-12 informed me about this opportunity six years ago. I contacted Anne Sheehan and got it. http://www.colorado.edu/chemistry/GK12/
