Float

Huế Children’s Shelter adopts a float for GO-BGC in memory of Jenny

Sponsored by US National Science Foundation
In partnership with Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), University of Washington, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Princeton University, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
February 2023: Float is assembled and undergoes preliminary pressure testing at the University of Washington’s integration facility in Seattle, WA
March 2023: Trinh and Tom decorate the children’s float at UW’s School of Oceanography
April 2023: Float is air-freighted to Cape Town, South Africa
September 24, 2023: Float is deployed in the South Atlantic Ocean 400 kilometers west of the Cape of Good Hope by research vessel Roger Revelle, begins collecting
and transmitting ocean physics, chemistry and biology data.
January 20, 2023: The Art and Science of Jenny’s Float, lecture with Earth Scientist and Robotics Engineer Tom O’Reilly for Friends of Huế Foundation’s Children’s Shelter, Huế, Việt Nam     Jenny’s float will continue collecting ocean data for about seven years.

This. Is. So. Very. Super. So. Much. Exciting!!! I can barely handle it.

The Global Ocean Biogeochemistry (GO-BGC) Array is a project funded by the US National Science Foundation to build a global network of chemical and biological sensors that will monitor ocean health. Scientists from partnering institutions will build and deploy 500 robotic ocean-monitoring floats around the globe that will collect data on the chemistry and the biology of the ocean from the surface to a depth of 2,000 meters, with the aim of improving computer models of ocean fisheries and climate, and to monitor and forecast the effects of ocean warming and ocean acidification on sea life.

In honor of our belovèd JennyBoo, I’ll be working with MBARI Engineer Tom O’Reilly to draw on an adopted float that will include designs created by the children residing at the Friends of Huế Foundation’s Children’s Shelter in Việt Nam. The float will also be adorned with an orchid+tea leaf garland made specially for this project by Minnie Uyen Thai. Jenny was a world-traveler who was enamored by the mysteries that science could help us understand, so this is a beautifully fitting way to celebrate her life and memory together with the children whom she so deeply adored, while taking part in this unique project to help us learn more about our changing oceans!

To date, students from nine countries have adopted Argo floats, and the Jenny Do is the first one from Việt Nam.

This will be a wonderful opportunity to engage the children in science education. Along with designing artwork for the float and partaking in lectures and workshops that combine the artistic with the oceanographic, the children will also have more opportunities to engage as we live-stream while we draw on our float! They’ll also have the ability to track their float and learn more about our oceans from its collected data. I cherish this opportunity to dovetail art and science as we serve our young minds and future scientists! [Also, my very first public show was a benefit show for the Friends of Huế Foundation’s Children’s Shelter, which was curated by Jenny. So, it’s wonderful to be coming full circle in this way!]

Thank you, Tom, MBARI, and Friends of Huế for allowing me to serve our children and our earth in this very unique and necessary project; to University of Washingtons’s Rick and Greg for being such wonderful hosts, and to the children for blessing us with your heartful artwork, and for working with us on this project!

Artwork created by the children at the Friends of Huế Children’s Shelter in Huế , Việt Nam.