Photo by Peter Morenus Center, in collaboration with the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford. The students are at the controls of a remote-operated vehicle and are trying to maneuver the robot along the floor of Long Island Sound. While using controls from on board the ship, they must drive the vehicle in a straight path for 10 seconds, change its direction and return it to the ship. The students are being checked on how well they accomplish the task, and it will be part of the science grade they receive for the term. Classroom of the Sea relies as heavily on content as it does on hands-on, practical experience.
Students receive lectures and homework, and much of their laboratory work occurs out on the water.
The partnership began five years ago when students and teachers from the American School for the Deaf began taking part in the Aquanauts Program, an educational outreach program run by Scheifele and Ivar Babb, director of the National Undersea Research Center. It's funded by several private foundations, along with Connecticut Sea Grant, which pays for the ship time. The Aquanauts Program, still in existence today, exposes high school students and teachers from around the state to hands-on oceanographic research. They become members of a research team that travels to sites in Long Island Sound and the Gulf of Maine, and are exposed to complex ecological and environmental subjects and issues. For the past five years, students have been collecting data on the impact that noises from whale-watching boats and other vessels have on whales.