What a great day today!! A leopard seal has been laying on piece of ice and floating slowly around station all day. It has been fun to watch it.
I went plankton sampling this afternoon looking for krill, an important part of the Antarctic ecosystem and a major food source for penguins and whales. I plan to use them in experiments. Fortunately, we had a great catch! More on plankton sampling and krill another day. Now for some of your questions.
Students in both Ms. Sipe’s 6th grade class at Berkeley Prep and Ms. Himmelstein’s 4th grade class at Roland Park Country School asked:
Why did you choose to be a scientist and did you have any interest in science when you were in elementary school? What made you interested in studying marine biology?
I have always loved science, particularly aquatic science. I started out in elementary and middle school being interested in streams, and all the little insects that lived under the rocks. As I grew older I would fish in these streams and found the fish really interesting as well. I grew up near the Chesapeake Bay, and all of the creeks and streams around there flow into this large estuary. The more I learned about the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem the more interested I became in marine science, because estuaries are where rivers meet bays (the water is saltier than a river, but not as salty as the ocean). I decided to study Biology and Environmental Science in college. I enjoyed this so much, I decided to continue in science as a career. I don’t regret this decision at all! What a great job it is to find the answers to interesting scientific questions, and to teach students how to become scientists.
