Category Archives: Announcements

ISC news and information regarding upcoming activities and schedules.

Northwest Passage Project

The Northwest Passage Project (NPP) will explore the changing Arctic environment during an innovative expedition that will engage diverse audiences through real time interactions from sea, an ultra-high definition 2-hour documentary, and related community events.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the NPP is a collaborative effort between the University of Rhode Island (URI) Inner Space Center (ISC) and Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO), the film company David Clark, Inc., and several other collaborators, including six U.S. Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and the tall ship SSV Oliver Hazard Perry (OHP).

Two cohorts, each consisting of 18 students (six high school students, nine undergraduate students, and three graduate students), will sail on board the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry for 2-2.5 week legs. These students will receive science content instruction as the ship is underway, gain navigation and sailing skills, engage in hands-on projects while aboard and during site visits on land, and contribute to live broadcasts from the Arctic.

The student participants will be sailing on the OHP, the first ocean-going, full-rigged tall ship built in the U.S. in over 100 years. The students, scientific party, film crew, and ship’s crew will journey through the Arctic’s Northwest Passage in August of 2017.

For more information on the NPP, please read a recent press release.

 

New Year, New Field Season!

The NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer‘s 2017 field season will kick off January 18, 2017, with a mapping expedition from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Pago Pago, American Samoa. This field season marks the third year of CAPSTONE, the Campaign to Address Pacific Monument Science, Technology, and Ocean Needs. The goal of which project is to collect data necessary to support science-based decision making for marine protected areas (MPAs) in the central and western Pacific. Continue reading New Year, New Field Season!

ISC Team helps discover black box from El Faro shipwreck

UPDATE:

Transcripts from the El Faro‘s black box have been released by the National Transportation Safety Board. The recording covers the last hours of the voyage. The Inner Space Center was integral in the discovery of the black box and was  praised by federal investigators.


Original Post:

The Inner Space Center (ISC) team has been working in conjunction with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to investigate the sinking of the El Faro cargo ship. The 790-foot cargo ship sank off the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015.

Continue reading ISC Team helps discover black box from El Faro shipwreck

Northwest Passage Project Press Release

URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography receives $2.9 million grant for groundbreaking Arctic expedition

Team will sail into Northwest Passage next August to conduct research, education aboard tall ship, Oliver Hazard Perry

NARRAGANSETT, R.I., Sept. 7, 2016—The University of Rhode Island has received a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct a groundbreaking research and education expedition into the Canadian Arctic’s Northwest Passage.

URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography’s Inner Space Center, an international facility that supports and conducts ocean science research expeditions, will lead the expedition, which will begin in August 2017.

The three-year Northwest Passage Project is a collaboration among the GSO, the film company David Clark, Inc., and several other partners, including America’s newest tall ship, the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry, three science museums, PBS NewsHour Reporting Labs, and six Minority Serving Institutions: California State University Channel Islands; City College of New York; Florida International University; Texas State University; University of Illinois at Chicago; and Virginia Commonwealth University.

The consequences of climate warming are more pronounced and observable in the polar regions than any place else on Earth. The team will explore the changing Arctic through unprecedented educational and scientific endeavor, which centers around a five-week expedition on the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry, the first full-rigged sailing ship to enter the Northwest Passage in more than a century.

Two groups, each consisting of 18 students—six high school students, nine undergraduate students, and three graduate students—will sail for 17-day legs of the expedition. The students will receive science instruction as the ship is underway, gain navigation and sailing skills, and work alongside ocean scientists as they conduct Arctic research. The 18 undergraduate students will be from the Minority Serving Institutions. There will be an application process for high school and graduate students.

The students will also contribute to daily live broadcasts from the Arctic that will stream from the ship via satellite to the Inner Space Center, which will then send the live broadcasts to the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward, where audiences will be able to interact in real time with the scientists and students aboard the ship.

In addition to the live broadcasts from sea, the project will result in a two-hour, ultra high-definition documentary for television. The Minority Serving Institutions and the three science museums will host screenings of the film and events where the public can meet the expedition’s students and scientists.

Gail Scowcroft, associate director of the Inner Space Center and principal investigator and director of the project, says she is delighted to receive the grant.

“The rapidly changing Arctic environment is an issue of global importance,’’ Scowcroft says. “Broader impacts of Arctic research must include informing policy, educating the citizenry to make sound decisions, and inspiring students to become the next generation of scientists. Challenges to educating the public and communicating the realities and impacts of the changing Arctic must be overcome with credible, understandable science and proven methods of climate education. The project meets these challenges. We are extremely grateful to the National Science Foundation for giving us this opportunity, and we look forward to bringing high school, undergraduate, and graduate students along on the expedition of a lifetime. We fully expect that the onboard team of filmmakers led by David Clark, an award-winning film producer and director, will capture the participants’ excitement so that the public can share in our journey.’’

“We are blessed with a top shelf team,’’ says Scowcroft. More than 25 ocean science researchers and educators from throughout the country will be involved. Brice Loose, GSO scientist and co-principal investigator of the project, will be the chief scientist for the expedition and will lead the students in conducting cutting-edge research. Inner Space Center Director Dwight Coleman, an international leader in telepresence technology, will direct the shore-side operations of the expedition.

The team will depart from Newport in August 2017. The ship will sail to Pond Inlet in Nunavut, Canada, where the scientists and students will begin their research. The film crew will join the ship there. “Our Northwest Passage Project team will be part of history,’’ says Clark, “as we provide a visually stunning and historically poignant platform from which diverse audiences will experience a dramatically changing Arctic.”

Photo above: SSV Oliver Hazard Perry. Photo by Onne van der Wal.

Courtesy of the University of Rhode Island. Media contact Elizabeth Rau, 401-874-4894

Telepresence on the R/V Sally Ride

From November 28 to December 5, 2016, the Inner Space Center (ISC) supported a science verification cruise for the R/V Sally Ride, one of two, new vessels in the U.S. Academic Research Fleet.  These short cruises are intended to test the ship, crew, and science systems to make sure that all are in proper working order before the ship  departs for its first research expedition. The Sally Ride was named after the late Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, who was part of the space shuttle Challenger crew in 1983.


The ISC team tested
the ship’s capabilities to support the Jason remotely operated vehicle (ROV) system as well as ship-to-shore telepresence technologies and protocols that will enable shore-based participation during ROV dives. Director of the ISC, Dr. Dwight Coleman, installed a mobile telepresence unit (MTU) on board. This unit allows for any ship to have telepresence capabilities.

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ROV Jason deployed off the R/V Sally Ride.

During the cruise, ROV Jason was used for a variety of exploration activities. Geophysicist, Dr. Mark Zumberge, and his group from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, used Jason to attach geophysical sensors to the sea floor. Dr. Lisa Levin, also from Scripps, used the ROV system to continue biological survey of the seafloor around the Del Mar methane seep near San Diego, CA.

View from ROV Jason.

Along with ROV operations, the R/V Sally Ride was able to connect to the Birch Aquarium. Amanda Netburn, Bruce Applegate, and Dwight Coleman hosted live  broadcasts to the aquarium’s new Sally Ride exhibit.

Birch Aquarium audience.

For more details about the R/V Sally Ride, visit their website.

Inner Space Center helps locate black box from El Faro shipwreck

The Inner Space Center (ISC) has been working in conjunction with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to investigate the sinking of the El Faro cargo ship. The 790-foot cargo ship sank off the Bahamas  during Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015. Continue reading Inner Space Center helps locate black box from El Faro shipwreck