A Mount Edgecumbe High School science student from Kotzebue presented new findings on bowhead whales Tuesday at the Marine Science Symposium. Teressa Baldwin is analyzing whale calls collected with new recording equipment put in place by the school’s Sea Tech program, run in co-operation with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Baldwin is Inupiaq, but says she never had much contact with bowheads until she got involved with this project. The new equipment can hear whales far out to sea under the ice. Baldwin took that data and compared it to where the whales were actually being seen, or not seen.
This evening, Baldwin will be one of the young achievers Governor Sean Parnell is expected to introduce to the state Legislature during his State of the State Address. Baldwin says she is starting to get used to standing up before the public – or at least her fellow scientists.
This is the second year that the high school Sea Tech program has presented findings to the Symposium.
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Johanna Eurich is a contributor for the Alaska Public Radio Network.