Nicolle von der Heyde 

Nicolle von der Heyde, an eighth-grade science teacher at Hazelwood East Middle School, will talk to visitors December 29 at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.

She will take part in part of the museum’s “The Scientist Is In” program, in which a marine scientist, stationed in the museum’s Sant Ocean Hall, talks to and shows visitors specimens or artifacts and talks about what they did in their field research, any new discoveries, their favorite topics of study and more.

Von der Heyde participated in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) Teacher at Sea program last summer. She and her crewmates on the vessel Pisces spent 14 days in the Gulf of Mexico sailing through the area affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil well explosion and subsequent oil leak.

The NOAA team performed seafood monitoring and safety assessments on the Eastern side of the Gulf, catching fish that were weighed, measured, and frozen to be examined for oil contamination by the National Seafood Inspection Laboratory in Pascagoula, MS. She recorded her experience via logs, photos and interviews with scientists.

“The Smithsonian contacted me as a result of the Teacher at Sea trip,” she said. Von der Heyde and Melinda Story, the other teacher on the trip, will spend two hours answering visitors’ questions about what they experienced on the voyage. NOAA will pay for von der Heyde's trip.

“People who come to the museum can interact with us and ask about what we did in the gulf,” she said. “The main message of the program is that anyone can get involved in science; it’s accessible to everyone. We will have a video presentation on a plasma screen showing some of the research we participated in and we will have specimens focused on coral reefs.

“It’s a way for us to talk to people about real science and the work that NOAA does in the Gulf.  I’m extremely excited and proud to be picked. I know people are going to ask about the oil spill and while I’m not an expert, I hope they enjoy hearing the first-hand account of what we saw”.

Von der Heyde will interact with visitors on December 29 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in Sant Ocean Hall, part of the National Museum of Natural History.