Maplewood Richmond Heights seventh grade science teacher Bill Henske has been selected for the Teacher at Sea program to spend 15 days aboard the NOAA research Ship Nancy Foster with a team of science teachers from around the country and a crew of NOAA scientists.
The ship leaves Key West on Sunday. He said they’ll be doing fisheries research and mapping coral reefs beginning at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
“We’ll travel from there all the way to the Dry Tortugas, which is at the very end of the keys,” he said. “And then we’ll turn around and go the other way up along the keys to past Miami and then take out in Charleston, South Carolina.”
He said his classes do a lot with water sheds and water quality in Missouri, and locally in Deer Creek, so his experience will be applicable to the classroom at MRH.
“Having that expertise, being able to put students in contact with actual researchers and show them research we did—we can bring it alive and make it something that’s approachable for students,” he said. “So they’ll actually know people who have been on these research vessels and collected this data that led to the understandings we have of the ocean.”
Henske will keep a blog of the trip, and said he can answer questions anyone might have about life on the ship or the research through the blog. It’s at NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog.
This trip for Mr. Henske is a really cool one. His blog is listed above in the article, if anyone is interested in reading it….Congratulations Mr. Henske….and enjoy your voyage !!