{"id":149316,"date":"2019-09-10T12:51:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T16:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/?p=149316"},"modified":"2019-09-30T16:19:23","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T20:19:23","slug":"an-endeavor-to-explore-and-educate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/publications\/aboard-gso\/issues\/summer-2019\/an-endeavor-to-explore-and-educate\/","title":{"rendered":"An Endeavor to Explore and Educate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An Endeavor to Explore and Educate<\/h1><\/div><\/div>
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In a unique experience, undergraduates conduct and communicate ocean science.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIt is important to expose students in mixed majors to science because it could provide a spark for those students that have not necessarily made a decision.\u201d<\/blockquote>GSO professor Melissa Omand<\/cite><\/div><\/section>\n

\u201cBlue skies and whales, baby!\u201d exclaimed Nick Housman, a marine biology major at URI. The undergraduate student in URI\u2019s Honors Program made this statement each morning as he was sailing onboard the Research Vessel (R\/V) Endeavor a<\/em>s a participant in this year\u2019s Coast and Shelf Investigations (\u201cCSI: Oceans\u201d) class.<\/p>\n

The semester-long URI Honors Program course, which exposes URI undergraduates to the interdisciplinary nature of oceanography, is led by GSO professor Melissa Omand and GSO graduate student Chris Orphanides. The course culminates in a six-day expedition onboard GSO\u2019s R\/V Endeavor<\/em> funded by the Rhode Island Endeavor Program. Students use oceanographic tools to examine and analyze whale-zooplankton-oceanography interactions that occur in waters of Southeastern New England. The students also gain science communication experience with GSO\u2019s Inner Space Center (ISC), a one-of-a-kind national facility that works with cutting-edge technology to facilitate ocean exploration in real time. During the cruise, students become important ISC production team members, acting as co-hosts and cameramen for interactive Endeavor Live broadcasts. Spring 2019 marked the third year of this immersive undergraduate course, with eleven students taking part in the research cruise during April.<\/p>\n