Students Translate Deep-Ocean Science into Kids' Books

A father pleads with his son to climb into bed. The son reluctantly abides but asks for a bedtime story in exchange. It’s a classic scene, but in this reimagining the two are water droplets and the story the father tells is of a process that carries water across the globe, from the atmosphere to the deepest parts of the ocean.

"It all started when I was way up in the sky inside a cloud,” the father begins. He goes on to describe falling from the cloud to the Arctic's deep ocean, then traveling the currents for many years until he eventually emerges among a pod of dolphins off the coast of the United States.

The father’s adventure is a first-person account of meridional overturning circulation, a process that describes how water – as well as heat, salt, carbon, and other nutrients – moves between ocean basins. His journey is captured in a children’s book, called “ A Water Drop’s Bedtime Story ,” written and illustrated by nuclear engineering student Luke Wells as part of an assignment for a class taught by Dr. Annalisa Bracco.

"I never imagined writing a story about that, and I am a physicist,” Bracco said.

Bracco is a professor of climate science and oceanography at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech). In addition to teaching, Bracco is an oceanographer and physicist. She is part of a research team studying the genetic connectivity of corals in the deep ocean of the Gulf of Mexico. The project was funded by the NOAA RESTORE Science Program with a  $1.3 million award in 2017 .

For the past three years, Bracco has asked students of her mini-mester course on deep-ocean science – a shortened course for students from a variety of majors – to produce creative products inspired by the class. Previous students have produced paintings, videos, and children's books.

"One of the things we try to get them to do is to communicate and express themselves, and there is nothing that tells me more if they understood something or not than seeing them trying to reach children or much younger people,” Bracco said. 

As part of the course, Bracco describes the scientific topics being explored through the RESTORE project. This research, which is led by Dr. Santiago Herrera of Lehigh University, uses genetic evidence to describe the history of deep-sea coral populations and modeling to infer what their future may look like. To inform their models, the team considers ocean dynamics like circulation patterns and the interaction of reproductive patterns with physical oceanography.

“It’s very difficult to figure those things out in the deep sea,” Herrera said. “We cannot see where the larvae are going or follow the larvae from one place to another. We have no real idea, actually, when reproduction takes place or when larvae are released.”

The project also considers threats to deep-sea coral communities, such as impacts from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Herrera described communities of Gorgonian corals – fan-like bushes that can grow up to three feet tall – that are situated a mile below the ocean’s surface, at the same depth as the oil spill. 

“We know that they were heavily impacted by the oil spill,” Herrera said. “Some of those colonies can be hundreds of thousands of years old. They grow very, very, very slow.”

Just as reproduction in the deep sea is excruciatingly slow, environmental conditions such as ocean circulation and other large-scale dynamics have not historically changed quickly either. However, because of impacts from climate change, environmental conditions are shifting much more rapidly, and for deep-ocean species like Gorgonian corals, it can be difficult to adapt. 

Translating the science of the deep ocean and the threats that impact its communities is a necessary step to grow awareness about important but little-understood ecosystems, Herrera said.

“There are interesting questions that remain to be addressed there. Answering those questions can be very important to managing the resources that exist there, and ultimately, that has consequences for our own survival and the planet.” - Santiago Herrera

“I think it’s crucial because I think most people are not aware at all that one, the ocean can be so deep, and two, that there is life living in the deep ocean, let alone corals,” Herrera said. “And as they are important in shallow waters, they are also very important in the deep.”

Sophie McCabe is a junior at GA Tech, studying chemical engineering. McCabe is one of three authors who produced the book “ Fred’s Deep Ocean Adventures ,” which tells the story of a whale named Fred and a shrimp named Sebastian who explore the deep ocean together. As they swim, the two encounter an oil pipeline, radioactive waste, and plastic trash accumulating on a coral reef.

“I don’t think necessarily that a lot of younger audiences really know how much waste goes into the oceans,” McCabe said. “We all see on the news growing up, ‘Oh, don’t litter on the beach,’ but that’s a very specific aspect of what’s going on and how our actions are impacting the ocean. We don’t always really understand that there’s radioactive waste or that there’s drilling that’s impacting the ocean floor.”

After she graduates, McCabe plans to look for jobs in the oil industry. McCabe said Bracco’s course conveyed a different perspective from many of her chemical engineering classes, helping her understand the environmental and geologic impacts of industrial activities in the deep ocean. 

“Especially in the oil industry, it’s very interesting having this perspective and I can already see if I am looking at companies in the future, asking: How do they handle their environmental impacts? Are they investing in renewable energy? What does their decreasing carbon emissions plan look like? How is upstream oil refining going to be changing in the future?” McCabe said. 

Devon Robinson graduated from GA Tech with a degree in environmental science in 2020. She now works as an environmental consultant for Montrose Environmental Group, where she advises companies on environmental compliance and permitting. 

When Robinson took Bracco’s course, her daughter Millie was 3 years old. Robinson worked with her classmates to create a  story  that centered around the adventures of Millie and a sea turtle named Sam. In the book, Millie hops on Sam’s back as they dive deep into the ocean, encountering an Argo float, bioluminescent marine life, and hydrothermal vents. 

As Sam drops Millie back off on the shore, he issues a request: “Us ocean folk need someone like you to spread the word about the ocean floor up there on land. Will you do that for us, Millie?” “Okay, Sam, I will,” Millie responds. 

After the book was complete, Robinson read it to her daughter, who was excited though not quite as thrilled as Robinson herself. 

“We actually laminated it and printed it out, and we have it bound with yarn,” Robinson said. 

Distilling complex science into an easy-to-understand format, like a children’s story, is a skill that Robinson sees as crucial for all scientists, and it’s one she uses in her career today. 

“I have to explain these really detailed federal, local, and state regulations and how to be in compliance with those regulations to these managers of industrial facilities – ‘These are the laws. We are going to help you stay within those laws and help the environment and the people around you,’” Robinson said. “Communication is probably our number one.”

In 2018, Herrera’s research received  additional funding  through the Competitive Research Program in NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science. This funding supports an expansion of the project to the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, as well as nearby areas, and considers not only the genetic connectivity of corals, but also sponge and fish species.

As one of the largest studies in the Gulf of Mexico studying the population genetics of corals, Herrera said he believes his research has significantly advanced understanding of deep-sea coral connectivity in the Gulf region. Sharing that research with children is crucial to supporting the next generation of researchers, he said. 

“There are interesting questions that remain to be addressed there,” Herrera said. “Answering those questions can be very important to managing the resources that exist there, and ultimately, that has consequences for our own survival and the planet.”

• " A Water Drop's Bedtime Story ," written and illustrated by Luke Wells.
• " Fred's Deep Ocean Adventures ," written by Sophie McCabe, James Smalley, and Sydney Matyczynski. Illustrations by James Smalley.
• " Ocean Adventures with Millie and Sam, " written by Danielle Newman, Clayton Parnell, Parinia Patel, Devon Robinson, and John Thompson. Illustrations by Devon Robinson.