Maddy's letter, answered by David Strauss, a NOAA Corps Officer and Scientist for NOAA/PMEL/EcoFOCI in Seattle

Dear Maddy,

I am a NOAA Corps Officer that works for EcoFOCI as a scientist.  I mostly do technical things like help assemble the buoys that we put in the ocean with lots of sensors on them.  One buoy I work with has a surface float that has a mini weather station in it.  It also has a computer on it that can talk to another buoy that is under-water.  It gets data from this buoy and then sends it off to our lab via satellite.  This way we can know what is happening with the ecosystem in real-time back at the lab.

We will be putting your class's styro-foam heads and cups in the water soon.  I am sure that they will shrink down to a very small size.  I have done this before with a cup of my own and it was quite impressive.  We are excited to see what the heads do as we don't usually send them down.

We have seen many cool things on this cruise.  Sea-ice, ice seals, whales, sea-lions, and many different sea-birds.  They are all very interesting.  We will be ending the cruise soon and sending you back your styro-foam goodies.  I hope you enjoy them.

Sincerely,

LT Dave