St. Thomas
high school students and members of the general public interested
in deep-ocean geological research are invited to attend live
Wednesday morning chats with a UVI professor conducting ocean
research in the Sea of Japan. The additional 10 a.m. sessions on
UVI's St. Thomas campus will take place next Wednesday, September
30 and subsequent Wednesday mornings through October 28. High
school groups requiring transportation assistance will be
accommodated.
University of the Virgin Islands researcher Dr. Nasseer Idrisi is a
research biological oceanographer and professor in the Marine and
Environmental Science master's degree program.
Idrisi was recently selected as the first Historically Black
Colleges and Universities (HBCU) "Educator at Sea" sponsored by the
Consortium for Ocean Leadership. He is participating in an
international research project that is studying an ocean plateau
located about 900 miles east of Japan. The plateau - a large area
of raised ocean bottom - is known as the Shatsky Rise. Idrisi
departed from Yokohama, Japan on September 4 on board the
scientific ocean drilling ship JOIDES Resolution. The journey will
conclude on November 4.
In his position as a teacher at sea, Idrisi is part of the
shipboard expedition's science party and is communicating his
learning experiences via live videoconferencing from the
ship.
The ship's main research technique is to drill into the rise and
take core samples that the project's 24 scientists are examining
for clues to the history, sources and evolution of the rise.
Idrisi conducted his first "live chat" with a room full of students
and other interested persons on Saturday, September 19. He first
gave the UVI audience a tour of the ship and its laboratories. He
and other scientists then fielded a variety of questions from
students gathered in room 101 of the Teacher Education Building.
Idrisi is scheduled for noon chats on Sunday, September 27;
Saturday, October 10; and Sunday, October 25.
"This is
an enormous opportunity," UVI Science Professor Dr. Donald Drost
said of the live videoconference sessions. Drost teaches Science
100, a first-year science course at UVI. More than 50 of his
students participated in the live chat on Saturday. "This is
real-time science and it's wonderful that students have an
opportunity to be a part of it."
Additional Wednesday morning sessions will take place on the St.
Thomas campus October 7th; October 14th;October 21st; and October
28th .
School groups and others interested in organizing their own
videoconference sessions with Dr. Idrisi will need to obtain
special IOCOM software in order to communicate. An informational
fact sheet and technical specifications can be obtained by visiting
these links
Shatsky
Rise_Fact_Sheet
Shatsky Rise
Technology
The Shatsky Rise project is organized by the Integrated Ocean
Drilling Program (IODP) and sponsored by the Consortium for Ocean
Leadership, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization that
promotes advanced research, education and sound ocean policy.
Consortium members include the United States, Japan, China, South
Korea and the European Union.
More on the Shatsky Rise voyage, including background, photos of the ship and the scientists and sailing schedules, is available from the Ocean Leadership web site: www.oceanleadership.org.
For information about scheduling or reimbursement for group transportation to the live videoconference sessions, please contact Nicolas Drayton at ndrayto@uvi.edu or call 693-1239.