The Inner Space Center is the live streaming provider of the R/V Endeavor, operated by the URI Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO). The ship sails on missions throughout the Atlantic Ocean with scientists and students from URI as well as other institutes. GSO faculty utilize the ship to test new equipment, introduce students to life at sea, and conduct research.

Explore with the ISC as we kick off another series of Endeavor Live! broadcasts in 2022! The ISC is pleased to be supporting live broadcasts from sea as ten URI undergraduate students sail onboard the R/V Endeavor for the research cruise component of a URI Honors course led by GSO faculty, Dr. Melissa Omand. The 6-day research cruise will take place in two expedition legs from March 25-30, 2022, and will involve an array of autonomous ocean technology, with student research focused in two active areas of oceanographic research: ocean plastics and underwater sound.  For more details about the cruise, please see details below.

Educational groups and the general public are encouraged to be part of the Endeavor Live! conversation! Classrooms, homeschoolers, and other educational groups are invited to sign up for free, live, “ship-to-school” opportunities, where ISC science communicators and URI students will share their ship-based experiences. Public audiences are invited to participate in live events that will be streamed through various social media channels throughout the duration of the expedition. All broadcasts will last approximately 25 minutes, and will feature a live connection to the R/V Endeavor. Want to know more about ocean science, plastics in the ocean, underwater sound, or maybe just life on a ship? Receive an update on cruise activities and ask your questions in real time- all you need is an internet connection!

Endeavor Live! Public Live-Stream Events:

• Friday, March 25 @ 12PM and 5PM Eastern (Facebook Live)
• Saturday, March 26 @12PM and 5PM Eastern (Facebook Live)
• Tuesday, March 29 @ 12pm and 5PM Eastern (Facebook Live)

**NOTE: Unexpected weather has shifted the cruise dates; programs originally planned for Monday, March 28 will now take place Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Be sure to “like” the Inner Space Center’s  Facebook page to follow this and other R/V Endeavor expeditions.  

Miniboat Inspiration Live-Stream Events: 

• Thursday, March 24 @ 12PM, Miniboat Inspiration Launch Preview (GSO Facebook and YouTube)
• Saturday, March 26 time TBD – Miniboat Inspiration Live Launch (GSO Facebook and YouTube)

Registration is required to take part in broadcasts geared toward education groups. Connection links will only be shared with those groups that have registered. Please use this link to register. 

Endeavor Live! Ship-to-School Group Interactions (private YouTube event):

• Friday, March 25 @ 10AM, 11AM, and 1PM Eastern
• Tuesday, March 29 @ 10AM, 11AM, and 1PM Eastern

**NOTE: Unexpected weather has shifted the cruise dates; programs originally planned for Monday, March 28 will now take place Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Additional cruise details:

During the first expedition leg, which will take place from March 24-26, 2022, the ship will steam over 18 hours offshore to recover, service, and redeploy an anchored oceanographic mooring that is part of an at-sea observation network gathering data on the ocean twilight zone (OTZ). The OTZ is a mostly dark, “meospelagic” region of the ocean, approximately 200–1000 meters below the water surface. With the largest amount of fish biomass on Earth, the area  is vitally important, however, it remains largely unexplored. Onboard Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) technicians will work to download data logged by various sensors on the mooring line and service associated equipment. URI students will also deploy biodegradable plastic disks at different depths along the line. When the mooring is again recovered in August 2022, researchers will look at microbes that have grown on the plastic disks and the rate of plastic degradation at different depths. The science team will also deploy a ‘MINION’ float that will take images of sinking marine snow particles in the OTZ. In addition to these efforts, an Educational Passages uncrewed miniboat, built by students in the Central Falls, RI, school district in partnership with GSO, will also be launched during the first expedition leg. With its onboard satellite transmitters, the miniboat’s movements can be followed and tracked across the ocean. (For more info: https://educationalpassages.org/events/urigso/)

During the second leg of the cruise, March 27-29, 2022, URI students will investigate how low frequency, underwater sound travels in Rhode Island Sound. In addition to another MINION deployment, the students will work with the Endeavor crew and scientists onboard to deploy a drifting hydrophone array equipped with a high-definition recorder and two miniature RAFOS Ocean Acoustic Monitoring (ROAM) tags, that will eventually be used to acoustically geolocate fish.  To investigate how an underwater acoustic sweep attenuates, the ship will move at varying distances away from the hydrophone array, and lower a RAFOS sound source. Data collected from the drifting array will show how sound detection rates and characteristics differ at these varying distances.  These at-sea trials will take place during March 28, 2022. (For more information on underwater sound: https://dosits.org).

Funding to support these ocean science and communication efforts is provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Rhode Island Endeavor Program (RIEP).  URI/GSO is grateful for the Devereux Foundation’s continued support of miniboat collaborations with RI school districts.