A unique collaboration between Georgia Tech and a team of scientists from the University of Maine-Orono is making the science of turbulence more accessible to middle and high school science teachers. The three-part “Turbulence” webinar series was conducted at 7:00 p.m. on January 23 and 30; with the final installment scheduled for February 6. The webinar series gives viewers exclusive access to the expertise of marine scientist Dr. Pete Jumars, as well as CEE’s Dr. Donald Webster and Georgia Tech biology professor Dr. Jeannette Yen.
The series is free and open to anyone with an internet-connected computer with a working audio system. The last segment will air this Wednesday, Feb. 6.
Designed for physics, math and science educators, these webinars present information on the physics of turbulence as well as its effect on marine life. Each webinar features an interactive concept map filled with additional resources for use in the classroom, including videos, images and other resources.
Webster said he was excited to be able to work with Jumars, a well-respected marine scientist who is presenting the series, in collaboration with Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE), as a part of a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Together, the team presented talks intended to motivate and inform middle and high school teachers across the country about the different ways they might introduce the concept of turbulence into their classrooms.
Webster’s talk, “What is Turbulence and Why Do We Care?” was conducted on Jan. 23 at 7:00 p.m.
On Jan. 30, Dr. Yen’s webinar, “From Cosmos to Copepods - What Effect Does Turbulence Have at Different Scales?” aired and on Feb. 6, Jumars will wrap up the series with “How Does Turbulence Shift Advantage for the Tiniest Ocean Critters?”
This is not the first time that Webster and Yen have collaborated on this subject. In 2008, the two Georgia Tech colleagues co-authored (with CEE graduate student Katie Rasberry) “Quantifying Copepod Kinematics in a Laboratory Turbulence Apparatus” in the Journal of Marine Systems. In that piece the researchers explored the application of a new apparatus that permits simultaneous detailed observations of plankton behavior and turbulent velocities.
“All marine life lives in a fluid environment, so there is a close relationship between the physics of turbulence and the effect it has on marine life,” Webster said. “In this webinar series, I will describe turbulence from a fluid mechanics standpoint – how we describe and model it – and Pete and Jeannette will pick up the baton to discuss turbulence as it relates to the environment of marine life.”
