What is the purpose of the expedition? Go to the Project
Overview section. Read the pages that discuss the expedition challenge
and goals. List the three challenges and the five questions that relate
to the project goals.
Begin Your Exploration . . .
Challenges
1)
2)
3)
Goals
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Now find out a little more about Alaska's corals. Go
to Corals in Alaska. Read about corals, the
first Alaska explorations and recent
work on Alaska's corals. What interests you the most?
Now go back to the Project
Overview: Team. Read the biographies of the scientists on the cruise.
Considering the expense of sending professionals on research expeditions,
why do you think each of these researchers was chosen? Did they cover
all their bases?
Use this
space to reflect on the team. Is this the team you would assemble for
such an expedition? Is there any skill that you feel was left out? Invent
a team member you think would be an important addition. Write a brief
biography.
Where do corals live and what kinds are there?
How deep are they, on what surfaces and in what geographical locations?
Scientists are especially interested in figuring out
which areas have a larger number of species (greater diversity) and
a larger number of individual animals (greater abundance).
In each of the following sections, you are encouraged
to explore the cruise Web site with a particular objective in mind.
Read through the journal entries. Retrace the journey using the photo
archives. Listen to the audio clips, and view the short films. Your
job will be to find evidence that the scientists were able to gather
information that will help them to fulfill the objective.
Journal Entries
The Control Van: Sights from the Seafloor
Parallels between the seafloor and — Arizona?
Audio Clips
Movie Clip:
Gathering
Corals from Jason II
Various coral
photos from the archives
What can you write about the diversity and abundance
of corals in the following areas?
1) water depths of 350m and above 3) rocky outcrops
2) depths below 350m 4) silty/muddy ocean floor
In the journal entry from August
4, Bob Stone expresses surprise about the surveys from deeper waters.
Do the findings surprise you? What is Stone's guess about the data?
Can you think of other explanations?
How important are corals to other animals?
What is their role in the ecosystem?
Scientists are especially interested in how coral habitats
may be used by commercially important species such as cod, rockfish
and king crabs.
Use the following resources:
• Journal Entries
• Audio Clip
What ecosystem role do corals play?
• Photos
of different animals from the archives.
How
do other animals use coral? What is your guess?
The scientists have just begun to collect important data on the importance of coral to other species. As professional scientists, they will guess (or hypothesize) about how other animals use coral habitat. They will not, however, conclude anything until they have evidence. So far, some of their hypotheses are that crabs and brittle stars that they see climbing to the top of coral colonies are using them as feeding platforms.
How do you think these or other animals use coral gardens? Look through the photo archives. Describe or sketch your ideas. Make it plausible, but use your imagination! Some of the best theories in science started as somebody's highly imaginative idea.
Can the scientists map enough habitat
in enough detail?
The researchers need to create maps of the seafloor topography that are as complete as possible and contain details such as depth, slope angle, seafloor roughness and bottom material. For example, they may determine how much of the flat seafloor at a certain depth is covered in mud, how much in pebbles and how much in larger rocks. Once they know which species of coral are found where, they can place them on the maps.
Covering the entire 1600-km long Aleutian archipelago
on this trip was not possible, so the cruise focused on a 500-km long
area in the middle where fishing has been heavy and previous studies
indicated that there was a great diversity and abundance of corals.
Within this area, the scientists were required to sample smaller sections
of the seafloor. If they cover enough different habitats in their samples,
they can fill in the rest.
Refer to the following resources
as you answer questions 1 and 2, below.
Journal Entries:
1) What were some of the unexpected difficulties
encountered on the cruise? Do you think that these were large enough
to prevent the scientists from collecting important data?
2) We all use sampling techniques in our daily lives.
For example, we count one small area in a jellybean-filled jar and multiply
or evaluate a movie's popularity based on the reviews of a few friends.
How do you use sampling techniques? How can you make sure that your
techniques are more accurate and your conclusions more valid?