Authors:
Youth contributors: Adrena McDonald, Deagan Lacorne, Ella Bertelsen, Gabriel Brost, Hayden Chapple, Kaize Roach-Ashoona, Leora Rabesca, Neo Barnaby, Kristyanna Camsell, Odin Mcdonald-Silastiak, Peyton Simba
Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI): Dana Redhuis, Assistant Research Scientist in Geospatial Ecology
Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC): Rebecca (Becky) Edwards – Advanced Remote Sensing Analyst, Aaron Sneep – Remote Sensing Analyst
Ecology North: Brandon Pludwinski, Education Program Manager.
Northern Youth Leadership (NYL): Steph Woodworth – Project Director, Nina Slagter – Youth Employee, Goliah Makletzoff-Cazon – Program Coordinator
Videographer: Brandon Mack
Weather: Smoky and in the 70s F (20s C) all day.
Our first day of camp found me waking up on Steph Woodworth’s couch. Steph is the Project Director for Northern Youth Leadership (NYL), a nonprofit focused on building on-the-land experiences for youth across the Northwest Territories. I blearily got up and went outside to meet Brandon for a run. It was still wild to me how just a few months ago, we had discussed organizing this camp as a hypothetical goal, and now here I was, waking up on a collaborator’s couch, with just a few hours until we met the youth who had been accepted to attend the camp.
We then began the process of getting the equipment together. Becky Edwards, an advanced remote sensing analyst from Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC), arrived, and we headed to the storage unit to make sure that we had all of the equipment—canoes, tents, packs for the youth, and all of the food that we needed for the five days that we would be fully out on the land.
We then went to B. Dene Adventures. This is a camp that NYL has partnered with for the past few years on various camps. B. Dene is located right outside of Dettah and has a large space that was perfect for holding some of our larger workshops with the youth.
From there, the youth started to arrive. The next few hours were a blur of introductions, gear checks, and setting up. We ended the day in a circle with the group, sharing introductions and laughs as everyone began to get to know each other.
The night ended with a beautiful sunset and games of flashlight tag.
Weather: Similar to yesterday, in the 70s F (20s C), though quite a bit more smoky. Nearly 100 fires were active in the NWT during this week, and monitoring FIRMS and the AQI were safety priorities.
This day began with several camp leaders and youth waking up early for a quad ride from B. Dene to the road so we could head over to where the canoes had been stored (at a boat launch in Dettah proper) and paddle them into the bay that the camp lodge was located in. After a lovely meal prepared for us by the B. Dene Adventures staff, the youth geared up for their first big day of paddling. David Brinston from the NWT Recreation and Parks service guided the group in a Paddle Canada tandem canoe course, where the youth learned basic canoe skills and paddle strokes.
The youth went back out on the water after lunch to practice canoe rescues, and everyone was grateful for the chance to get in the water on such a hot, smoky day.
After the day’s paddling was done, the group worked together to create a camp agreement—solidifying group values, community actions, responsibilities, and teamwork structure for the camp.
The day ended on a high note with moose stew for dinner and a successful Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) boundary creation workshop. This workshop, led by Brandon from Ecology North and Becky and Aaron Sneep—a DUC researcher on the Boreal team with Becky—was designed to reflect the ongoing development of IPCA committees in the Northwest Territories, with a focus on the initial step of selecting an IPCA study area.
The youth played the part of different land users as hunters, land guardians, miners, loggers, and outdoor recreation outfitters and used a variety of maps highlighting important areas to decide what to protect. The youth got into character and presented their hypothetical IPCA boundaries to a hypothetical IPCA committee. This workshop highlighted the learnings of passion and politics involved in land-based negotiations, offering valuable insights into the decision-making process. Ultimately, this activity taught the youth to analyze map data and develop informed ideas and opinions that have practical real-world implications.
Weather: Cloudy and cool, temperature in the 50-60s F (10-15 C)
Today we started out with Ecology North and MTRI’s Models and Mirrors workshop, where we used lasers against mirrors to demonstrate how active sensors collect imagery that is beneficial for wetland monitoring. (The UAVSAR, for example, was collecting imagery for the ABoVE airborne campaign in Yellowknife that day.) The youth had to work to bounce the laser against as many surfaces as possible in order to understand both how an object could be measured through radar and how dynamics such as distance, scattering, and laser strength (an unintentional variable as the batteries in the lasers began to die) affected data collection.
After lunch, the group took part in paddle drills and practiced skills like canoe lifts and how to use throw bags.
DUC then led the group in workshops focused on northern waterfowl after lunch. These activities included wetland identification and measuring the ‘wingspan’ of the participants. The youth had fun learning about which bird they would be based on their ‘wingspan’ (the length of their arms).
These workshops continued after dinner, as youth examined owl pellets. We ended the day with a walk to a nearby wetland and stories around the campfire.
MTRI’s participation in this camp was funded through the NASA ABoVE project: Informing wetland policy and management for waterfowl habitat and other ecosystem services using multi-frequency synthetic aperture radar. PI: Nancy French.
The last time I saw the small promontory off Herradura Bay in the Gulf of Nicoya, it was 31 years ago aboard the German research vessel Victor Hensen, named after the pioneer 19th-century German marine scientist who devised some of the earliest tools to investigate the biology of the smallest oceanic organisms, the plankton. In 1994, as a 25-year-old marine biology graduate from the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica (UNA), I was fortunate to be selected to represent UNA on a joint expedition with the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and a German marine research institute. It was a rare opportunity to conduct research aboard a state-of-the-art vessel off the coast of my own country.
That evening, three decades ago, we anchored off Herradura Bay for an “anchor station” to study how the Gulf of Nicoya exchanges water and nutrients with the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean. The Gulf sits at the convergence of the Cocos and Caribbean tectonic plates, where oceanic waters mix with riverine waters. As the Cocos Plate slowly subducts beneath the Caribbean Plate, it shapes the land and seascapes that influence the climate and ecology of Central America.
Recently, I returned to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica for another international expedition, this time with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Ocean Ecology Laboratory’s Field Support Group (FSG). For the past 15 years, I’ve worked with the FSG as a contract scientist, supporting NASA’s mission to collect and distribute data from satellites that measure ocean color. These data provide valuable insights into the biological components of the ocean, which can help scientists, policymakers, and resource managers better understand ocean ecosystems.
Our hosts for this expedition are scientists and policy specialists from Costa Rica’s Fishing Federation (FECOP), led by Dr. Marina Marrari, an energetic Argentinian oceanographer based in Costa Rica and former postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Ocean Ecology Laboratory. Our mission is part of a collaboration under the Airborne Validation: Unified Experiment Land to Ocean field effort, which seeks to calibrate a new class of space-borne imagers for tropical vegetation and ocean research. But this collaboration with Dr. Marrari began many years ago, when she became part of an early adopter project for NASA’s latest ocean color satellite mission: the Plankton, Aerosols, Clouds, ocean Ecosystems (PACE) mission. PACE is part of this new class of spaceborne imagers that gathers data from well over 200 wavelengths, providing new insights into how the Earth system works and, in particular, on ocean biology, including phytoplankton—the foundation of the marine food web. These plant-like organisms produce about half of the world’s oxygen and fuel the marine food chain.
FECOP’s work intersects with NASA’s objectives in studying the rich pelagic biodiversity off Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. These waters support regional fisheries and a growing sportfishing industry that draws thousands of tourists each year. According to FECOP, sportfishing contributes over 2 percent to Costa Rica’s GDP—comparable in relative terms to the entire construction sector in the U.S. in 2024.
For NASA, this expedition offers a chance to validate and improve satellite measurements in a region with unique optical characteristics. The algorithms NASA uses to estimate biological parameters, like chlorophyll, rely on data from across the globe but may not be suitable, for example, for detecting harmful algal blooms (HABs or “red tides”) in specific regions, like the Gulf of Nicoya in the central Pacific side of Costa Rica. Water color is influenced by various factors, and a particular optical signal can indicate different biological or chemical processes in different regions.
Local scientists from UNA and UCR participating in the expedition play a critical role in enriching our measurements. A key focus is understanding regional phytoplankton, especially those that can cause HABs, which pose risks to public health and local economies. By refining satellite data with local expertise, we hope that our measurements can lead to region-specific algorithms for early warning systems that can detect HABs and alert authorities.
NASA’s data have already proven invaluable for sportfishing enthusiasts. Satellite information on surface ocean temperature, chlorophyll, and other oceanic parameters has been integrated into PezCA, a mobile app developed by FECOP, helping fishermen forecast fish catches and potentially reducing fuel costs while maximizing the value of Costa Rica’s tourist sector.
Costa Rica is internationally recognized for its sustainable tourism and biodiversity conservation efforts. Now, with the help of spaceborne sensors capturing oceanic data, the country can extend these efforts to its vast territorial waters, which are 10 times larger than its landmass.
Returning to the coast of Central America, the same waters that first sparked my scientific journey, has been an emotional homecoming. Reconnecting with old colleagues, witnessing the growth of a new generation of talented scientists and policymakers, and being part of this expedition has been a truly colorful experience. This journey is a reminder of the vital, enduring connections between science, the collaborative efforts of local communities, and multidisciplinary researchers working together to protect and better understand our oceans.
Authors:
Youth contributors: Adrena McDonald, Deagan Lacorne, Ella Bertelsen, Gabriel Brost, Hayden Chapple, Kaize Roach-Ashoona, Leora Rabesca, Neo Barnaby, Kristyanna Camsell, Odin Mcdonald-Silastiak, Peyton Simba
Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI): Dana Redhuis – Assistant Research Scientist in Geospatial Ecology, Nancy French – Senior Scientist & Technical Fellow
Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC): Rebecca (Becky) Edwards – Advanced Remote Sensing Analyst, Aaron Sneep – Remote Sensing Analyst
Ecology North: Brandon Pludwinski, Education Program Manager.
Northern Youth Leadership (NYL): Steph Woodworth – Project Director, Nina Slagter – Youth Employee, Goliah Makletzoff-Cazon – Program Coordinator
Videographer: Brandon Mack
In October 2023, Nancy French and Dana Redhuis of Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) attended a conference to give a presentation titled “Wetland Monitoring with Satellites: Facilitating the Use of New Wetland Maps for All.” The presentation was an overview of MTRI and Ducks Unlimited Canada’s project with NASA ABoVE to conduct wetland mapping and monitoring in the ABoVE study region, with a particular focus on the Peace-Athabasca and Slave River Delta.
This conference was one of MTRI’s first major outreach opportunities within communities in the Northwest Territories, and we had two goals: 1) to share how our inundation and wetland classification maps could be beneficial for land managers, and 2) to learn how else we can better benefit communities in the Northwest Territories. We want to ensure that we’re conducting fieldwork ethically and with cultural respect, and we want to provide opportunities within the research initiatives happening in the north to communities living in the north. How could we, as external researchers, provide real and lasting positive contributions to the community?
This conference is where our team met Steph Woodworth, the project director of Northern Youth Leadership (NYL), and Brandon Pludwinski, the education program manager of Ecology North. NYL runs remote wilderness programming for youth aged 11 to 17 from across the Northwest Territories that is meant to help youth develop leadership skills, life skills, emotional resilience, and challenge themselves through positive risk-taking. Ecology North is a non-profit organization that promotes environmental education for all age levels in the Northwest Territories. We decided to set up a follow-up meeting with Steph and Brandon and found that one way that we could provide a beneficial contribution to communities in the Northwest Territories is through assisting in the creation of an on-the-land camp.
Becky Edwards, an advanced remote sensing analyst for Duck Unlimited Canada’s (DUC’s) national boreal program, and Aaron Sneep, a remote sensing analyst for DUC’s national boreal program, have been involved in this project since its initial phases and were happy to contribute to this collaboration. Goliah Makletzoff-Cazon, NYL’s project coordinator, and Nina Slagter, NYL’s youth employee, also largely contributed to the creation and administration of this camp. Brandon Mack was our final staff member, a talented videographer from Yellowknife hired by NYL to document the camp.
NYL had already begun planning an on-the-land camp in Hidden Lake Territorial Park, which is a 3,000-hectare park roughly an hour away from Yellowknife on Highway 4, in the Tłįcho (North Slave) region. Steph graciously allowed MTRI, DUC, and Ecology North to partner on this camp, with the goal of creating a curriculum that allows the youth to view wetland environments from a ‘leaf-to-orbit’ perspective. This camp’s focus was on land-based leadership and environmental education, with a curriculum designed to encourage self-growth, land stewardship, community, and responsibility. The camp’s learning goals included remote sensing resources and concepts, wetland species identification (particularly wetland types, trees, waterfowl, and macroinvertebrates), paddling (canoeing) skills, portaging, and living on the land.
Through a blend of land-based skills, the youth thrived in an immersive and empowering environment. A few of the opportunities provided through this camp include:
This camp was scheduled for August 12-18 of 2024. We decided to host the first few days at B. Dene Adventures Cultural Camp. This way we could conduct a few workshops under a roof and provide paddle training to the youth before heading out on the land. Look out for our next article, which will go into the day-to-day operations of this camp!
MTRI’s participation in this camp was funded through the NASA ABoVE project: Informing wetland policy and management for waterfowl habitat and other ecosystem services using multi-frequency synthetic aperture radar. PI: Nancy French.
Today marks day 12 of the AVUELO campaign, and what a whirlwind it has been! It feels like just yesterday we were kicking things off, but with so many moving parts, time has flown by. Between the flight team, field crew, and lab team, we’ve had two major components to manage: terrestrial and coastal operations.
What makes this campaign particularly exciting for me is my deep connection to Panama. Having spent a large part of my childhood in the area we are sampling, it feels almost surreal to be back here working on such an important project.
Every day begins early, around 6:30 a.m., to check the weather to determine if the airplane will fly. I then jump on a teleconference to discuss with the flight team and project members whether the conditions are right for the day’s flight. So far, we’ve had four flight days in Panama, although unfortunately, the weather has been challenging, with heavy cloud cover over most of our area of interest. This year has been one of the wettest dry seasons in recent memory in Panama, but despite the weather, we’ve managed to secure some great data not just over our primary sites but also over secondary sites of interest.
The field teams are truly a well-oiled machine at this point. They leave at the crack of dawn, ready to collect leaf samples. The sites vary, so some teams hike to their sites, while others take boats or even use cranes to access the canopy. The goal is to collect samples from the very top of the trees, which can be a tricky task when the trees are tall. For the canopy team, it’s a breeze—they simply sample from the top. For others, the process involves creative methods like using long poles, slingshots to throw ropes around branches, or other creative means! In one memorable moment, a group of parrots inadvertently helped out by knocking down a few leaves as they flew off a tree. Once the samples are collected, they’re stored in bags, carefully noting the species and location. The team then returns to the lab, typically past noon, where the lab work begins.
In the lab, the samples undergo various analyses. Different stations process the samples, one measuring the spectra of the leaves (including transmittance and reflectance), another measuring leaf mass area, and yet another focusing on the stomata. Some samples are ground up to be analyzed later for their composition. It’s an intricate process, but every bit of data we gather is important to better characterize the plant.
Though these past two weeks have been exhausting, it’s incredibly rewarding to see how dedicated everyone is. The energy, teamwork, and commitment of the crew to ensure the success of this campaign have been truly inspiring. Each day, we’re making progress, and I can’t wait to see where the next days will take us.
Stay tuned as we continue our journey with the AVUELO campaign!
AVUELO has encountered one of the wettest and cloudiest dry seasons in memory. After a series of great acquisitions over core and important areas, our airborne science has stood down for several days with heavy cloud cover. So, what do AVUELO and a Joni Mitchell song have in common? She sings in “Both Sides Now” about how beautiful and enchanting clouds are but concludes:
“But now they only block the sun
They rain and they snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way”
They haven’t snowed on us in Panama, but they have definitely gotten in our way. Unusual weather, possibly associated with weak La Niña conditions, is resulting in more moisture transport to Panama and Costa Rica and fewer opportunities for flights, though AVUELO’s core areas and critical sites are largely covered. While the aircraft has been in the hangar, the team has met for no-go and planning meetings each day, and the field teams continue to obtain samples at a steady pace.
During the past few days, canopy trees at several sites, including from tall mature forests and younger stands, as well as samples from mangrove forests, have all come into the lab. Sampling and processing continue even as the aircraft waits for better weather.
Each Friday, the Gamboa-based team hosts a Friday seminar. This past Friday, Andres Baresch presented on pantropical trait retrievals from a partner instrument, PRISMA, from the Italian Space Agency, reprising a talk in Spanish given earlier at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) Panama City HQ, well attended by many STRI scientists working on a range of projects.
A few days ago, Project Scientist Erika Podest and I, with Helena Muller-Landau, AVUELO’s lead scientist from STRI, took several staff from Panama’s Environment Ministry to Barro Colorado Island (BCI). We had an amazing tour of the site where AVUELO was sampling and saw samples being collected from the canopy by skilled forest rangers. We had the chance to see wildlife, birds like the slaty tailed trogon and tinamou, forest deer, and both howler monkeys (well-named) and shy spider monkeys.
While we were at Barro Colorado, we participated in a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboaratory (JPL) project. Artists at the lab create disks with the name of a field location in Morse code. When a JPLer is at a field location, they press the disk into the ground, and it creates a transient memorial, which we can photograph as part of a collection. Erika and I found a muddy spot by a stream where the soil was soft enough to take the impression and then had to decode the Morse to tell the Barro Colorado disk from a Panama City disk. We pressed it in and took photos, linking BCI, STRI, and JPL in Panama through our collaboration.
To scientists accustomed to temperate forests, the diversity of the tropical forest is overwhelming, as one rarely encounters the same species twice. These forests present an entirely new challenge to imaging spectroscopy, and the precisely located foliar analyses together with coordinated aircraft observations will open a new world of analysis for Earth Observations, with current and ever more spectroscopic missions on orbit to document the changing function of tropical forests with pressure from climate and land use. Knowing there could be hundreds of species per hectare in Panama (more types of trees than in all of North America) was different than seeing the forest and different from seeing the huge variety of leaves passing through the lab.
As I write this, AVUELO is pivoting to marine observations along Costa Rica’s west coast, supported by a new crew, ocean biologists from Costa Rica, and members of NASA’s PACE instrument team, observing the diversity and unique aspects of the tropical ocean. They will report in soon! But, in Panama, for now, we are eager for another one of Joni Mitchell’s song lyrics, “Come to the Sunshine.”
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