Makiki schoolteacher Jerry Mueller is going where few outside the scientific field have gone before -- 7,000 feet below sea level into a dark world of towering spires and near-freezing temperatures. Montessori teacher
will be taking a trip
to bottom of the seaJerry Mueller has an opportunity
to dive aboard a submersibleBy Lisa Asato
lasato@starbulletin.com"It's kind of like going to space but you're going the other way -- the frontier of the ocean," said Mueller, a sef-described "nonscientist" who teaches first, second and third grade at Montessori Community School.
The 51-year-old will accompany 17 scientists and college-age students on a research expedition to the Gulf of California, where they will study life systems surrounding hydrothermal vents. Mueller's trip is funded by a $6,000 grant by the National Science Foundation. He was asked to go along by the expedition's chief scientist, James Cowen, a research professor at the University of Hawaii oceanography department and a former board member at Montessori school.
"This is an ... increasingly important objective to reach the general population, especially the children," Cowen said, adding that Mueller was perfect for the job because he is a "very experienced and gifted" teacher in a school known for innovative teaching methods.
For Mueller, the highlight of the trip will be spending eight to nine hours inside the 7-foot-wide pressure hull of ALVIN, a 23-foot-long deep-sea submersible that was used to survey the sunken luxury liner Titanic. The dive to the ocean floor 1.2 miles down is one of five that scientists will make to collect sediment and fluids escaping the hydrothermal vents. Scientists will be studying how microorganisms affect and live off the superheated fluids.
The deep environment is "perfectly black except for biolumiscence," Cowen said. "When we turn on our submersible's light on the seafloor it looks like a lot of sediments with the occasional animal, but then when we get near the hydrothermal vents it's quite exotic and you have mineral formations like towering spires and lots of tube worms, crabs, limpets and lot of microbial mats, and you also see hydrothermal fluids being discharged at these high temperatures."
Mueller is reading everything he can to prepare himself and Montessori students for what he calls "an opportunity of a lifetime." His students are learning about hydrothermal vents, animal life and submersibles. All the elementary children took a field trip to the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory in Makapuu where they got a hands-on look at another submersible, Pisces V.
From aboard the research vessel Atlantis, Mueller plans to send daily e-mails and perhaps digital images to the elementary students at Montessori, which will be posted on an up-and-coming Web site at montessorihawaii.org. Montessori students will be able to ask online questions that he can answer while onsite.
Students already have been plying him with questions such as how long it will take to reach the ocean floor (about 1-and-a-half-hours); and how do you go to the bathroom (You don't).
Cowen said the dive was a rare opportunity for a nonscientist because ALVIN is "a highly sought-after research tool with limited seats, just a pilot and two scientists per dive." ALVIN is owned by the Navy and operated by the Massachussetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The trip is scheduled for April 24 to May 18, but may be delayed because Atlantis is currently in dry dock in San Diego undergoing repairs for its propulsion motor.
"Since I've never been 7,000 feet under the ocean that's certainly something I'm a little anxious about," Mueller said. "ALVIN has a good track record, I feel confident it's going to be safe; there's a little bit of anxiety there, but nothing that's going to make me not do it."