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SFOS Newsletter
Fall 2008

Rural students, oceanographers team up for science

Schoolchildren from a village on the west coast of Alaska are helping University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists learn where young salmon go when they enter the ocean.

Students at Quinhagak School learn about oceanography and how the drifter bouys work with Terry Reeve. Photo by Deborah Mercy.

Since June, students from Quinhagak, Alaska, have been sending out buoys that track ocean currents into Kuskokwim Bay. Led by Terry Reeve, UAF's Marine Advisory Program agent in Bethel, the students released a total of 32 buoys between June and the end of September.

The buoys float at the sea's surface and transmit location information via satellite to oceanographers on the UAF campus. By recording location data every 30 minutes, the buoys help oceanographers determine the ocean currents that carry juvenile salmon from the Kuskokwim River into the coastal waters of the eastern Bering Sea.

Students deploy a buoy into kuskoswim Bay. Photo by Deborah Mercy.

 

Reeve says that the students and administrators at Quinhagak School have been eager to help with the project.

Led by Reeve and Quinhagak resident Warren Jones, the students travel by boat about fifteen miles offshore from Quinhagak, where they release the buoys. The students are also learning about the project in the classrooms at Quinhagak School, where they disassemble sample buoys and learn about marine science.

An illustration of one of the drifter buoys.

According to Tom Weingartner, principal investigator for the project, many studies of ocean currents have been conducted in the deeper waters of the Bering Sea, but scientists lack information about the shallower waters off Alaska's west coast.

Weingartner says that ocean currents, tidal motion and winds at the ocean's surface are critical factors in controlling the currents that may affect the survival of young salmon.

By tracking the paths of the drifting buoys, scientists hope to better understand the marine habitat that may influence the highly variable runs of chinook and chum salmon in the Yukon and Kuskokwim River drainages.

The project is funded by the Arctic Yukon Kuskokwim Sustainable Salmon Initiative and will be continued through the summer of 2009.

Read more about this project in the news.

Track buoy data at mather.sfos.uaf.edu/drifters