This past month, sixty primary and middle school educators from the Bermuda Union of Teachers came to BIOS to participate in a professional development workshop focused on marine robotics.  The workshop involved PVC pipes, car batteries, foam noodles, propellers, and a race against time as participants were challenged to build their own Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) for launch into the Sargasso Sea. Successful ROVs are neutrally buoyant and can be maneuvered through the water to complete tasks, mimicking the professional classes of underwater robotics used around the world to collect data for science and industry.

After weathering more than two decades worth of tropical storms and hurricanes, BIOS’s Tudor Hill Marine Atmospheric Observatory was dealt a serious blow by Hurricane Gonzalo in October.  The Category 2 hurricane’s direct path over Bermuda led to the collapse of the 23 meter tall aluminum walk-up tower. Luckily, standard storm protocols successfully protected the instruments that sample aerosols and meteorological data for the observatory’s long-term datasets.

What do golden rafts of seaweed, great ocean currents, and ghost stories have in common?  They all play a part in the history and ecology of the Sargasso Sea, the focus of the 2012 Explorer program at BIOS that introduced 1300 primary students to hands-on marine biology, chemistry, and physics. With the recent publication of an “Expedition Sargasso” lesson plan by Kaitlin Baird, Assistant Director of Science Education Programs at BIOS, many more students will be able to discover the unique communities that thrive in Sargassum seaweed and explore the interconnectedness of ocean ecosystems.

The BIOS education team proudly accepted the TechAwards14 “Most Innovative Youth Project” for Ocean Academy’s HSBC Explorer program. The team sincerely thanks the Ministry of Education and Economic Development, and the sponsors of Ocean Academy.

Come out for a fascinating evening to get inside the development and passage of Hurricane Gonzalo and its atmospheric effects on Bermuda. Get a deeper look at the impact of the storm on the surrounding ocean as seen by the BIOS glider system deployed in the path of the hurricane.

Neoprene exposure suits, rapid-fire sampling, and filtering for DNA; according to 2014 BIOS REU student Keeley Rideout, science never sleeps. Find out why in Keeley’s blog!

Dr. Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley has been studying the legendary corals around Bermuda for more than a decade. As she dove to collect small coral samples for genetics studies during her doctoral research, she saw not only the island’s underwater beauty, but also the explosive growth of a foreign invader on the reefs — the lionfish.

Pteropods, which live in all the world’s oceans, are tiny cousins of the snail that spend their lives swimming in open water and serving as a primary food source for larger marine life, including salmon, sharks, and whales. With their delicate shells, pteropods are also in peril from increases in ocean acidity, said biologist Amy Maas, a champion for pteropods. The changing ocean chemistry caused by burning fossil fuels is reducing the mineral that pteropods use to build their shells, causing slower shell growth and rendering them weak and fragile.

Tell us about the boats you’re developing at the moment. Julie: The Solar Xplorer is our solar-powered autonomous boat. Until now, no one has managed to use solar to adequately power an autonomous boat. The challenge is creating a seaworthy vessel that has enough deck space for a sufficiently-sized solar array. We’ve overcome this challenge by creating a self-righting multi-hull boat. The 24-foot (7.3 meter) prototype carries 1,200 watts with 12 solar panels, which can power sensors that measure wind speed and direction, wave height and period, and the temperature, dissolved oxygen, and conductivity (or salinity) of the water.

When marine biologists Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley and Tali Mass met at a science conference last June, they bonded over their shared interest in deep-water coral reef research and their specialized scuba diving skills. Both are technical divers, skilled at using equipment called rebreathers—which recycle every breath and incorporate a mix of oxygen, helium, and nitrogen gases—to access corals living at depths of about 100 to 500 feet (30 to 150 meters).