In the hinterlands, where 57 volcanoes spread out across an archipelago in the Gulf of Alaska, a science teacher found herself aboard a research vessel.

South Ender Terry Welch, a science teacher at Coupeville Middle School, was aboard the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration ship Rainier for 11 days in June and July while scientists conducted hydrographic surveys near the Pavlof Islands.

The group of seven uninhabited islands lie south of Pavlof Bay on the Alaska Peninsula and are east of the volcanic Aleutian Islands.

This last frontier of America sits in all its punishing beauty at the top of the world and Welch will bring her personal impressions of this wilderness into her sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade science classrooms along with everything she learned about being aboard a ship of scientists and their crew.

She joined a program offered by NOAA called “Teacher At Sea,” which welcomed her into a crew of hydrographers on the Rainier who survey and map the ocean’s bottom.

“I’ve been to Alaska a few times, but I’ve never been north of Anchorage,” she said. “What struck me is that it was a completely different ecosystem; different animals with no trees and mostly grasses along the volcanic chain.”

According to her science and technology log, their mission was to collect data on what the ocean floor looks like near the islands. The data will be used to update marine navigational charts to keep the waters safe for all marine vessels, including commercial, recreational and government ships.

The program’s goal is to foster a clear insight into the ocean world and, by way of the hands-on experience of the teachers, to give students a greater understanding of maritime work and studies.

“I want to let my students know what a great organization NOAA is, and that a career in the maritime sciences is a great idea for a lot of students,” she said.

The program also provides teachers with some great stories to share with their students.

In her personal log for June 27, Welch wrote: “A personal highlight was seeing six grizzly or brown bears today from our launch boat. A mother and her three cubs hung out on the beach for a while.”

That was the day Welch learned about the logistics of using sonar, shorthand for “sound navigation and ranging.” The process is similar to the echolocation that marine mammals use.

Using multi-beam sonar that is mounted to the bottom of several small skiffs or “launches,” surveyors left the anchored ship and headed out to assigned areas.

From there, they surveyed the ocean floor in “lines” that traverse back and forth in the assigned area, much like an aerial surveyor would do when mapping an area by plane, Welch said.

Sending these small launches out to survey is much more efficient and cost-effective, because several boats can cover different areas every day.

The launches are operated by a coxswain, who follows predetermined lines, and the hydrographer in charge, who sits at a computer and gathers the data from the sonar system.

Physical factors such as salinity (saltiness), temperature and conductivity of the ocean water affect the system, so a special instrument called a CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth) recorder is lowered into the water every four hours to gather data which is inputed into the system.

“The day was quite enjoyable and a big learning curve for me,” Welch writes.

“There are a lot of boat terms that I’m learning along with the hydrographic science we do. I’m happy to see that there are many women who work on the ship at all levels from basic seaman, or able-bodied seaman, to cooks and NOAA officers who navigate and run the ship. Women appear to make up 25 percent of this crew, and everyone has been very helpful and informative,” she wrote.

Each log finishes with a list of terms and procedures she’ll bring back to the classroom, along with the various animals spotted each day.

The animal sightings are detailed: six grizzly bears (a mother bear and her three cubs on one beach and two other bears nearby), two bald eagles, sea otters and halibut.

On June 29, Welch’s personal log recorded her impressions of the abandoned native village of Belkofski that the team explored.

Originally built for the fur trade in the 1860s, it later became home to native Americans, and eventually was used to set up what was called a “teacherage” for the education of the villagers who still lived in the area.

Several wooden structures remain, including a wooden building and one larger cement and brick building that was the school.

“Judging from the date on one of the food items in the kitchen,” Welch wrote, “this area was last inhabited in the early 1980s. It’s amazing to see that many structures were still standing given the harsh climate around here,” she said.

Welch recorded her lessons about desalination, the process by which all the fresh or potable water on the ship is made from saltwater with a tool called an evaporator.

This is also the day on which she gets a tour of the engine room and learns how the ship’s power is produced.

Additionally, she is shown NOAA’s satellite imagery of the Pavlof volcano when it erupted in August 2007 — photos she will share with her classes.

On that day, Welch’s log finishes with her daily animal count, including one young grizzly bear and a pod of humpback whales.

A final log records the ship’s transit through the Shelikof Straight north of Kodiak Island on a clear and sunny day with views of the Chugach Mountains.

“We should be in Seward in the morning,” Welch writes. Here she ends with her regular animal census, “porpoises along the bow.”

Welch was adamant about the opportunities available to young people through NOAA. “I want to press upon students that if they ever want to go into the maritime fields, NOAA is a great organization and takes very good care of the people who are aboard these ships.”

NOAA has a variety of departments, including weather forecasting, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring, fisheries management, coastal restoration, navigational mapping and supporting marine commerce.

“The ship had a lot of young people on it who had high school diplomas and were happy that they could work their way up steadily on the ship, or those with degrees in math and science who were the engineers and scientists and loved what they did,” she said.

“They all said NOAA took good care of them; they were doing something they loved; they had adventure.”

Since its inception in 1990, the “Teacher at Sea” program has helped more than

500 teachers expand their classroom curricula by working side-by-side, day and night, with those who contribute to the world’s body of oceanic and atmospheric scientific knowledge.

But besides the practical knowledge she’ll bring back to class, when the students hear about how she flew in a small plane above the peak of Denali or how she sat and watched a family of grizzly bears frolic along the shore, Welch’s classroom may become the starting point for the dream of perhaps another future scientist or two.

To find out more about NOAA “Teacher at Sea” program visit http://teacheratsea.noaa.gov or call

301-713-7610.