Becoming an Arctic Ocean Scientist
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welcome this morning we’re here in
chicago
at the shedd aquarium with the one and
only francis crabill who is a phd
student at the university of illinois
chicago
studying arctic ecology and
biogeochemistry
francis is well known for her trips
multiple trips across the northwest
passage
she’s here to teach us a lot about the
arctic ocean and its impact on life but
also
about resilience and perseverance so
let’s head into where it all began for
you at the shedd aquarium
thank you so much francis for being
happy today i’m so glad to be here the
shedd aquarium is so important to
just my career and where my love for
marine biology really started so it’s
really cool to be able to do this
it is very special for us to be here so
tell us about this place
and about how uh sort of your love
and passion for marine biology began
yeah so i grew up in chicago and i
wasn’t really
like like a nature kid i didn’t really
like the outdoors but i did really have
a passion for
animals and i like to read and watch you
know pbs
nature shows um and then one day in high
school i needed to
find some extracurriculars to do so i
just googled the shed aquarium and see
like what sort of opportunities for
teenagers they had and that’s when i got
involved in the work study program
for teens here so on weekends i would
come and i would stand in front of
exhibits like the caribbean reef here
and
teach different guests about the animals
and sort of what happens here and got to
learn a lot about what happened behind
the scenes as well
and then i sort of just like worked my
way through all the different teen
programs they had i
started in high school lake ecology
where we went on a week-long kayaking
and camping trip to study
lake ecology and lake superior and then
i also did marine high school marine
biology
where we went to the bahamas on a
research vessel for a week to study
coral reef and mangrove conservation so
the shed aquarium is
the place where that showed me that a
career in field research
and science is totally possible and
would really
sparked my interest in doing things like
that wonderful so it sounds like this
place has had a deep
impact on your career i understand
that you have made three separate
attempts
to cross the northwest passage tell us
about each one
sure so i was part of something called
the northwest passage project which was
an nsf and heisen-simmons foundation
funded research project that allowed
undergraduate students to participate in
arctic ocean research in the canadian
archipelago
so in 2017 i was part of this class of
23 students and
there were many roles for students like
in communication or data analysis
and i was one of the students chosen to
actually participate in the expedition
and go up to the northwest passage to do
the data collection
so that was your first your first time
you were you were supposed to go but you
didn’t end up going
yes we were supposed to go on this ship
called the oliver hazard perry which was
this big
three-mast sailing ship and we were
going to help sail the ship ourselves
but
just because of the feasibility and the
safety concerns with the sea ice
the trip was canceled into the next year
wow so then you didn’t give up then you
went a second time yes
i continued on um doing research with
the project on coral reefs and wetland
ecosystems
during that year we were supposed to go
on the canadian icebreaker but
they had an engine failure so we picked
a different ship which was the academic
yafe
which is a russian cruise ship so it had
taurus on it as well as us scientists
and we traveled up to northwest passage
and after one night on the ship um
we ran aground and hit a rock and we’re
stuck
um so we had coast guard planes flying
around us
and after 26 hours um another ship
nearby was able to come and rescue us
that must have been terrifying
but you came home and you were you were
not giving up you were still
thinking you’re going yes i was so hurt
that um you know we didn’t we set up all
of this and we didn’t get to do any of
it and i just met this amazing group of
people that
i really connected with and hope to do
science with but
i just continued on i wasn’t sure if
whether whether or not
i would get to participate in the
project again because i was graduating
so i just applied to grad school i
accepted
a position at uic and they allowed me
to continue with the project as a
graduate student so instead of an
undergraduate i would get to sort of
have a larger role
leading undergraduates and working on my
own research ideas as well so that
summer we were able to
have a successful trip through the
northwest passage on the swedish
icebreaker odin
where we got to do so many amazing
things we did live broadcasts
from the arctic to museums and to
facebook live we were able to work
closely with
the inuit communities up there and get
sort of their ancestral knowledge about
the changes that are happening and how
it’s affecting their communities
we were able to take a bunch of data and
do a bunch of sampling as well so
it was really great and turned out
incredible and if you couldn’t get there
the first two times now you had an
actual ship breaking the ice and making
the path
through the northwest passage for you
wonderful well i’m glad you finally got
a chance to accomplish
such an incredible feat at 24 years old
yes really exciting
yeah phenomenal as you think it back to
those three different
trips and especially the last one that
was successful
what did they teach you about resilience
or
perseverance yeah so perseverance
is really important when you’re doing
scientific research because
science goes wrong a lot and you need to
be prepared for that
you need to be ready for it to happen
and you need to mentally
prepare to just not give up and know
that what you’re doing is really
important
and just because it’s hard it doesn’t
mean you shouldn’t do it and just in
general i think
if you are passionate about something
and you are interested in it
just keep going like things get hard but
hard work definitely pays off like you
never know what could happen
and sometimes your path doesn’t
necessarily
look the way you imagined it or it might
take some more time
but as long as there’s still
opportunities out there and you’re still
interested
definitely just keep going because you
never know what could happen you could
end up being like a
24 year old arctic ocean scientist
pretty impressive so talk to us about
what you’re doing now and how that
trip has informed your current day work
so i um have sort of based my phd
research at uic
off of this arctic ocean trip i took
um so i’m building off of sort of the
data we collected there
i’m really interested in sort of these
freshwater inputs into the arctic and
how this is going to change things like
nutrient cycles and productivity in that
region
so i hope to continue um traveling
through the northwest passage and sort
of kind of studying the canadian arctic
i hope to travel through the entire
northwest passage and not just sort of a
small portion of it
i’m also working really closely with the
norwegian institute of water research
in norway and i hope to expand sort of
some of my questions to the norwegian
coast
they have something called their north
soup project where they
have these ships of opportunities like
ferries or freight ships that sort of go
back and forth daily
and they have sensors and are doing
continuous sampling
so they’re collecting all this data and
i hope to sort of use some of that data
and go on some of these ships to sort of
apply
my questions from the canadian arctic to
the norwegian coast as well
something i’m working on currently is
growing arctic phytoplankton cultures in
a lab setting so that i can do sort of
my own
manipulations with co2 or with light or
with temperature
and see how things are going on in the
lab as well
francis bring us full circle to working
with young people
and some of the ideas that you have to
ensure that you are not
the exception with stories like this
sure so one of
my friends and i she works at a national
park we were just
sort of talking recently about how
there’s a lot of stigma for
brown and black kids and to go outdoors
and into nature
whether they’re scared or they don’t
have the opportunities we want to sort
of help
break that barrier by starting sort of
like a summer program like the ones i
participated here at shed
for students in chicago for them to go
to national parks go on hikes
learn about conservation learn about
different careers in science and climate
policy
you know i believe there’s going to be
this big generation of
climate scientists and climate informed
citizens and we just want to make sure
that
brown and black kids from chicago are
have the opportunity to participate in
that
francis thank you so much for sharing
your story and your vision for the
future we’re really lucky to spend this
time with you here thank you so much
you