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Mark McKay

About

Mark McKay's picture
Expeditions: Summer Ice Free Conditions
Occupation: Teacher
Organization: Venture Academy/Delta VISTA

Mark McKay currently teaches marine science, biology, AP environmental science, GIS, and forensics in a science and technology charter school he helped found two years ago. Prior to this challenge, he developed analytical instrumentation used in energy production and coordinated a grant providing science teacher training in rural and small school districts. Mr. McKay’s students are heavily involved in competitions and field research projects in the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and the Mokelumne River watershed, replacing invasive plant species with native plants and working to restore the river in order to increase salmon runs. In his spare time, Mr. McKay teaches other teachers and administrators, breeds tropical fish, scuba dives, competes in martial arts, and is completing a second masters degree. Mr. McKay feels he has the greatest job in the world, because he does real science with students who are interested and engaged, and he is looking forward to bringing more authentic science and oceanography to his students from his PolarTREC expedition.

Mark McKay's Content

Title Reply Post date
Color of the water and

Hello again. Its good to hear from you.

One thing that has amazed me the most here in the Bering Sea is the changing color of the ocean. It changes because of the amount of phytoplankton that is present, which in turn changes because of the nutient levels, and the location of the...{read more}

July 7, 2009 - 9:00am
Echiuran Worms

Hello Lollie

 

Im having a blast out here! There is so much to learn and experience. As for the Echiuran worms they are cool arent they. Im not sure exactly what their range i. We have a relative of them in California. There they are called "Fat Inkeeper" worms as...{read more}

July 3, 2009 - 2:21pm
science

Hello

 So far I guess my favorite research is the phytoplankton research I have been doing while on board. We are looking at a way to characterize phytoplankton populations in real time as we cruise through them. That is very cool and I have learned a great deal about how energy is...{read more}

July 3, 2009 - 2:28pm
Seabirds?

Hey Tom

Hows it going? We definitely say an increase in bird activity and diversity when we approached the  Pribilofs. We also saw the same thing when we were to the south and crossed the shelf break. Upwelling occurs at the shelf break and we saw an increase in all life, but the increase...{read more}

June 22, 2009 - 9:33pm
Jellies, brine, and

Hello

I directed your question about deep brine layers to Dr. Shull. He tells me that in the area we are at the salinity on the bottom stays close to what we see with the CTD sampler. This is due to the fact that at least in this region there is significant amount of mixing occurring. So...{read more}

June 22, 2009 - 1:18pm
Algae blooms are different

Hello again :)

 The answer to part of your question is no, unfortunaly we havent seen and albatross so far. The "Bird People" (everybody loves calling the bird researchers that) tell me that they expect to see them a little farther north. If I can get a picture I will post it in...{read more}

June 17, 2009 - 12:22pm
What's in the water?

Hello Maggie

 

Good to hear from you. Dr. Ray says hello. We will be sending you some micrographs of the plankton we collect as soon as we get started on that part of the project. As for your question about plastics qnd their effect on phytoplankton, Dr. Ray beleives that...{read more}

June 15, 2009 - 12:48pm
Re: New Forum topic: The sun

webmaster [at] polartrec [dot] com wrote:

{read more} 		March 2, 2009 - 7:45pm

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