Last year, Ms. Alejandra Martinez from Memorial Junior High was given the opportunity sail aboard the JOIDES Resolution as an Education and Outreach officer for 2 months.
The expedition, Expedition 360: Southwest Indian Ridge and Moho, was the first of 3 expeditions planned to drill to the mantle.
While aboard she facilitated ship to shore webcasts for students all over the world, wrote curriculum, and built her science content knowledge. She also met two microbiologists, Dr. Jason Sylvan and Dr. Virginia Edgcomb. They asked her to be a part of two grants they were applying for.
She contributed to the outreach portion of the grants.
They received both grants (NSF and NASA) and $12,000 over three years has been set aside for her students.
Dr. Sylvan, who is a professor at Texas A&M, and his grad student Shu Ying Wee, visited Memorial Junior High on Friday January 19th.
They looked at water samples with her students and made petri dish plates, so the students can see growing microbes.
They also went out to the river at Shelby Park on Saturday January 20th from 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. to show the students how the professors do field work.
Later this year, the students will be going on a trip to Port Aransas where they will get to go out on a boat.
The students have been communicating with Dr. Sylvan and Shu Ying Wee for the past few months and are really looking forward to the visit.
