Blue Hawaii: DHP Educators Cruise the Pacific as Sea Scholars
Joan Turner and Greg Graeber
 

	Joan Turner, in sunglasses, checks out the weather balloon before deployment.

For two weeks in August, Joan Turner and Greg Graeber, marine educators of the Discovery Hall Programs, participated with Sea Scholars and the Naval Oceanographic Office. They sailed on the USNS Pathfinder T-AGS 60 out of Pearl Harbor, O’ahu, across the Eastern Pacific to the coast of southern California.

They were among twelve teachers, eight of whom were from the Gulf Coast, with four from other parts of the country, including Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Seneca, Kansas, and Miami, Florida. Most teachers had a science background, but two of the teachers taught history and social studies.

	Greg Graeber investigates the instrumentation aboard ship.

During their time at sea the Navy conducted oceanographic surveys on bathymetry, geological oceanography, meteorology, biological oceanography, and acoustics. The teachers took mini-classes on each of these subjects taught by oceanographers and geologists that work for the Naval Oceanographic Office, J.L. Scott Aquarium, and the Navy.

The teachers saw bathymetry in action as the newest seamount in the Hawaiian Island chain, Loihi, was mapped on the ocean floor. They saw bioluminescence at work while doing a night plankton tow. They deployed a sonobouy at 18m and 133m and dropped light bulbs with weights attached to listen to the sound of them imploding. The teachers gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and first-hand data and experiences from this voyage across the Pacific that will be a focus of their teaching in the years to come.