From August 23 - September 13, 2018, the University of Rhode Island's Inner Space Center (innerspacecenter.org), with major funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and additional support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, will conduct a landmark expedition into the Arctic as part of the innovative Northwest Passage Project (NPP; https://northwestpassageproject.org/ <https://northwestpassageproject.org/>). The NPP is a collaborative effort between the University of Rhode Island (URI), Inner Space Center (ISC), and the Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO), the film company, David Clark, Inc., One Ocean Expeditions, and several other collaborators, including five U.S. universities that are classified as Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).
The expedition, with a team of natural and social scientists, students, and a professional film crew, will take place aboard One Ocean Expeditions' state-of-art, ice-class research vessel Akademik Ioffe. Using of a suite of oceanographic instruments throughout the ship's 22-day transit, the NPP team will collect water, ice, and air samples to advance understanding of and document the effect climate change is having on the environment and biodiversity in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Data collected will help fill significant gaps in critical scientific data about the region. During the expedition, NPP participants will travel south and west from Resolute Bay to Cambridge Bay via Bellot Strait, returning to Lancaster Sound and Pond Inlet before traveling down the east side of Baffin Island, with several stops along the way. In addition to participating in onboard research efforts, student participants will also receive science content instruction as the ship is underway, partake in field site visits, and contribute to live broadcasts from the Northwest Passage. Many of these students will be from underserved, minority groups (including local Inuit students from the Arctic), and thus, one of the goals of this project is to garner an interest and passion for the ocean/environment as well as inspire these students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, math (STEM). In addition to the educational goals of this innovative expedition, diverse audiences will be engaged through real time interactions from sea, an ultra-high definition, 2-hour documentary, and related community events. The ISC Production team is currently seeking media assets (videos and/or still images) of Arctic marine life (especially marine mammals) and environments to support the interactive broadcasts we will be conducting, in real time, with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Alaska SeaLife Center, and Exploratorium, as well as Facebook Live. As a member of this production team, and the host of these interactive broadcasts, I wanted to poll the MARMAM community to see if there are groups, labs, organizations, etc. with assets to share that could be used for our production purposes. Full credit will be given to those individuals/groups that provide any media assets; acknowledgement of media contributions will, of course, be made in credits for any production pieces. I am happy to answer any questions you might have about the NPP and look forward to hearing from you soon. For more information on the project, you can also refer to this press release <https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/tca-sst061218.php>. Regards, Holly Morin ******************************* Holly Morin Marine Biologist/Education Specialist URI/GSO/ISC South Ferry Rd. GSO Box 58 Narragansett, RI 02882 (401) 874-6414 holly_mo...@uri.edu
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