While in Toolik Lake, Alaska, PolarTREC teacher Susan Steiner worked with a robotic platform that traversed sections of tundra collecting information on a variety of different environmental variables. This article describes the sensors and instrumentation used on the platform in greater detail.
Many students are familiar with topographic maps showing relief of land surfaces. In this lab they will produce their own bathymetric maps, the underwater equivalent. A bathymetric map shows sea floor features by contouring depths below sea level (instead of elevation above sea level as in topographic maps). Students will first probe depths in “Mystery Bay”, a box