Third Grade Questions Options

[Mrs. Watson]

Dear Mrs. Barlow,
Our class enjoyed looking through the pictures and information on your web journal. Some of the kids would like to ask you some questions...

Harrison: How many different species of animals have you seen so far?
How heavy is all of your clothing?
Elizabeth: How many pennies did Ruth pick up in the hypothermia challenge?
Patrick: What was the temperature of the water?
Jessica: Did you participate in the hypothermia challenge?
Have you ever felt warm yet?
Erin: What is you favorite things so far?
Bethany: Did you like the walrus and would you eat it again?
Alexis: Have you tasted anything else new?
West: How big are the swells? (He likes the Deadliest Catch.)
Ravi: How long is the boat you are on?
What is your favorite experiment so far?
Emily: How long would it take your hand to freeze in the ocean water?
Haley: Did you find out what type of owl was the stowaway?
Casey: How thick was the walrus skin?

The kids also had some comments they wanted to share...
Emily: The sunset pictures were very pretty!
Elizabeth: The Basket Star was pretty neat!
Alexis: The owl was cool!
Erin: You looked hot with all the clothes on!
Peter: All the animals that were pulled up in the net were interesting!
Mrs. Watson: Cool pictures!

Best of luck for the remainder of your trip! Thanks again for posting all the info and pictures. It was really neat. We are on our last week of school!
Take care,
Mrs. Watson's Third Grade Class

[Samantha_Dassler_Barlow]

Dear Mrs. Watson,
I am so glad to hear from you. Thank you so much for writing. I will do my best to answer all the questions from your class.

Harrison: How many different species of animals have you seen so far?
I have seen so many that I don’t think I can count them. I have taken pictures of a lot of them and you can view those pictures in the Photo Gallery on my website.

How heavy is all of your clothing?
Most of my clothes are my normal clothes, except that I wear more of them at one time. For example, today I have on 2 pairs of socks, a pair of long johns under a pair of jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt, a short sleeved t-shirt, a fleece jacket, and underwear of course. I haven’t noticed that the clothes feel heavy because I am just wearing more of my normal clothes, but they do feel a little bulky.

Elizabeth: How many pennies did Ruth pick up in the hypothermia challenge?
Ruth picked up a whole handful of pennies while Tim only picked up one penny at a time. (I think one of them misunderstood the rules.)

Patrick: What was the temperature of the water?
The water was slightly above freezing, around 2°C.

Jessica: Did you participate in the hypothermia challenge?
Tim challenged Ruth to the contest and everybody came to watch. I only participated as an audience member.

Have you ever felt warm yet?
I feel warm quite often, like right now. When I am inside the ship, it feels like it does in your classroom. It’s usually just when I go out on deck that I feel cold.

Erin: What is your favorite thing so far?
My favorite thing so far was seeing a whale for the first time. I saw a whole bunch of gray whales. My favorite part of my job on board the Healy is trying to answer the questions that students ask me about the science or the ship.

Bethany: Did you like the walrus and would you eat it again?
I wasn’t very fond of the walrus skin, but I would like to try walrus meat if I had the chance.

Alexis: Have you tasted anything else new?
I have tasted seal meat that was packed in seal oil and also dried seal meat. Dried seal meat tasted similar to homemade beef jerky.

West: How big are the swells? (He likes the Deadliest Catch.)
Deadliest Catch – good show! We have watched a few episodes of the first season during our free time in the evenings. The biggest swells happened when the ship was in the Gulf of Alaska, which is south of the Aleutian Islands, and they were about 15 feet. The biggest swells I have experienced in the northern part of the Bering Sea were around 10 feet. Most of the time, the water is very calm because the ice protects the surface of the water from the wind. When the wind blows across large areas of open water then big waves like on the Deadliest Catch are created. The Deadliest Catch is also filmed during the winter months when there is less ice in the southern Bering and so the waters are much rougher. The boats are also much smaller than the Healy – the biggest one is half our size. So, the waves from the point of view of those boats seem to look much bigger and they feel them more. On the Healy, a large swell feels like a gentle sway.


Ravi: How long is the boat you are on?
The Healy is 420 feet long.

What is your favorite experiment so far?
My favorite thing to do in the lab is to see what animals come up in the trawl net and try to figure out what kind of animals they are.

Emily: How long would it take your hand to freeze in the ocean water?
Dear Emily, I asked around and I couldn’t find the exact amount of time it would take for a person’s hand to freeze in the ocean water. The crewmembers tell me that it could take 10 minutes or less for a person to go unconscious in the freezing cold water of the Bering Sea, but no one wants to try it and find out!

Haley: Did you find out what type of owl was the stowaway?
The bird specialists on board all seem to agree that the stowaway was probably a long-eared owl that most likely came from Eurasia since that was the closest land to us at the time.

Casey: How thick was the walrus skin?
My pictures show that my piece of walrus was just a very small slice through the skin layer. Walrus skin is about 1.5 to 2 inches thick.

Thank you, Mrs. Watson’s class, for the wonderful questions and for reading my journals. I really enjoyed trying to answer your questions and I hope that you will be able to ask more before school ends.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Barlow