In September 2025, Leah Gaines-Sewell, a Project Manager with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, joined a research cruise to the Main Endeavour Hydrothermal Vent Fields off the coast of Victoria, Canada. The expedition brought together researchers, students, engineers, educators and crew from across several institutions to study microbial communities living around deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
The research is part of a larger NSF-funded project involving Arizona State University and Lehigh University. The team is studying microbial communities at hydrothermal vents to better understand how these communities may respond as ocean temperatures rise and oxygen minimum zones become more prevalent. Sheryl Murdock served as one of the chief scientists on board.
For Gaines-Sewell, the research cruise offered another opportunity: bringing deep-sea science directly into classrooms.
Bringing the deep sea to students
Gaines-Sewell was part of an educational outreach team led by Kaitlin Noyes. During the cruise, the team conducted more than 24 ship-to-shore Zoom calls with K–12 classrooms across the United States, Canada and Bermuda, reaching approximately 850 students.
Six of those classrooms were at Osborn Middle School in Phoenix, Arizona.
The students sent Styrofoam cups with the research team to the bottom of the ocean. The cups were decorated by the students before the cruise and then attached to the research equipment and lowered more than 2,000 meters beneath the surface. At that depth, the pressure compressed the cups to roughly half their original size.
The activity gave students a tangible way to understand what happens in an environment that is difficult to visit—and even harder to imagine.
From a virtual classroom to a Phoenix classroom
The connection between the research team and Osborn Middle School did not end when the cruise was over. The virtual classroom at sea was deemed a success when the students of Osborn Middle invited Gaines-Sewell to their school.
Gaines-Sewell returned to Osborn Middle School for a question-and-answer session and a trivia game she created to see what students remembered from their experience with the research team at sea. The students performed well, demonstrating that the experience had made an impression.
For Gaines-Sewell, the invitation was a reminder of what effective science outreach can look like: not simply sharing information, but creating opportunities for students to participate in the process of discovery.
“Through discovery-driven partnerships and hands-on engagement with K–12 students, this work is expanding outreach across the country and sparking ocean stewardship in a new generation of young learners, no coastline required,” Gaines-Sewell said.
Discovery at more than 2,000 meters
Leah Gaines-Sewell's personal account of watching Alvin Submersible Launch:
It’s early and my eyes are still blurred from sleep and the scopolamine patch that will keep me functional. I watch one of my childhood heroes be launched via an A-frame into the Pacific Ocean. The surprisingly anthropomorphic Alvin submersible is cute, as only a machine can be. Its titanium mechanical arms and tiny viewports give it a distinct face that looks ready to explore other worlds. I watch the glow as it descends into waters of the deepest blue I’ve ever seen. We are here, thrusters keeping us hovering over the Main Endeavor vent field, our study site. The first dive is manned by 1 pilot and 2 engineers checking to make sure that everything is working correctly. Alvin will descend to over 2000 meters deep exploring potential study sites, it's been a long time since anyone has dived here and much could have changed.
