Polar Mail
May 10, 2009
Question:
Hello scientists and crew of Expedition 5!
My name is Samantha and I am a seventh grade student at Bannockburn School. Our science class has been following your expedition and I have a question. What is the process that takes place once an organism, fungi or algae is found?
Answer:
Dear Samantha:
Well, the scientists find a ton of organisms (which means anything that's alive—fungi, algae, walrus, giraffe, geranium) all the time. The bird people are watching for birds and marine mammals; when they see one, they enter it into the computer. You can read about how they do it here. The people who study krill and other zooplankton stick nets in the water and can pull up thousands of organisms at a time; you can read about what they do with them here, here, here, and here. Oh, and here. There are even people looking at single-celled organisms like diatoms, ciliates, and dinoflagellates—we wrote about one of those groups here.
