Taking the Temperature

The Science

This quilt is a data visualisation of air and seawater temperatures for the final 32 days of an oceanographic research expedition. The top half of the quilt shows daily air temperature, starting in the upper left, moving across to the right and down/across each row until the end of the fourth row. This layout is repeated in the bottom half of the quilt for the same time period but for seawater. The scale for the air temperature ranges from 16oC through 25oC (no values were recorded at 17oC, which explains the colour scale gap). Seawater temperatures were within this range.The Theme

The brain represented as a bright, but blurry, tree; I have chosen pink to highlight the section of the brain that lights up with ADHD, green to show the rest of the brain that is also shaped like a tree canopy, and brown for the earthing of a trunk, a plant stem, and our spinal cord. These colours also represent the way that ADHD can help my imagination and creativity bloom like flowers in spring.

The Theme

Daily measures of environmental conditions are standard on all oceanographic research expeditions, and the temperatures depicted here are from the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution transiting east in the South Atlantic Ocean to dock in Cape Town, South Africa.

Red/pink/orange batiks represent air temperatures, and batiks in shades of blue are for seawater temperatures. The binding fabric is orange and blue to bring together the two colour schemes, and the white background fabric is a Da Gama Textile (3 Cats Shweshwe) manufactured in South Africa. The quilt measures 52 inches tall by 46 inches wide.

Find out more here: https://journeysofdrg.org/2023/08/04/sciquilt-taking-the-temperature/

The Artist

Laura Guertin is an Earth science faculty member at Penn State Brandywine in Pennsylvania, United States. She is trained in marine geology and geophysics and has a passion for helping non-scientists learn STEM topics. One of her science communication tools is quilts for science storytelling. She is on Instagram @drlauraguertin and her other SciArt projects can be viewed here: https://journeysofdrg.org/category/sciquilts/