Full STEAM Ahead
What one marine sci-artist is doing to inspire careers in science, technology, engineering, art, and maths
Full STEAM Ahead is a blog by SWMS' guest author Karen Romano Young
My baseball hat has an embroidered wave on the front. It sits atop a styrofoam wig form that doesn’t know what’s about to hit it. Any day now, it’s headed (ha) for a mesh laundry bag zip- tied to Alvin — and when it comes back, my hat will completely engulf it, not perch atop.
Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Alvin
The cap and wig form sit on the windowsill of a porthole opening out onto the Caribbean Sea. Aboard R/V Atlantis, we’re chugging along the north coast of Jamaica, on a three-day transit from San Juan, Puerto Rico to the Cayman Islands — drawing a line of wake between the deepest points of the Atlantic (the Puerto Rico Trench) and the Caribbean (the Mid-Cayman Trough).
Research Vessel Atlantis - Karen's home in the Caribbean Sea
On board with me are 50-odd scientists; Alvin engineers, electricians, and pilots; and the Atlantis crew who run the ship and the operations that take us to the deep sea. Deeper, in fact, than ever before, for Alvin, which has just been certified to 6500 meters. Before, it could take humans up to 4500m deep — about 2/3 of the seafloor. With this brand-new certification, we’ve got access to 99 % of the seafloor. My expedition’s job is science verification: making sure that Alvin is able to gather the data — samples, photos, videos, and — so importantly, human observations — that science needs. So what am I doing here?
Telling the stories of Alvin and the people who work with this amazing submersible that has been the vehicle for so many discoveries. In words and pictures. Mostly comics.
I’m serious. I’m part of the team, and comics are part of the outreach, not only telling the plot of of our experiences here, but showcasing the characters involved, in hope of making the field more accessible.
For years, I’ve used my #AntarcticLog comic series to tell stories about scientific research. The biggest thing that I’ve learned during that time is the need in science for more viewpoints — not just the human-occupied vehicle viewpoints provided by Alvin, but the perspectives of people of every gender, background, ability, experience, and gift. There is room for all — and, especially in deep-sea science, so much to learn about our world and other ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond. And it’s evident that kids adore the ocean, its vehicles and its biodiversity. How do we get them from there to… here?
My answer — in progress, in proof of concept — is I Was A Kid. My new project has the goal of helping kids 8 to 18 see their way into science, technology, engineering, arts, and math fields like this one. Through sharing multimedia profiles of people already in those fields who represent a cross-section of skillsets, I Was A Kid routes the variety of pathways — bumps, obstructions, dead ends and all — that got them where they are, using comics, graphics, photos, and text.
Find out more at IWasAKid.com, and follow at @iwasakidSTEAM.