Our Virtual Speaker Series is an opportunity to learn from marine and aquatic educators, scientists, traditional knowledge practitioners, and other industry professionals. Speakers have shared experiences, educational tips, and stories from the field. The following talks are from the 2022/2023 season of the Speaker Series.
To see what’s coming up next, please visit our Virtual Speaker Page.
June 2023
Starting the conversation about sea otter reintroduction
Michelle St. Martin
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Marine Conservation Coordinator (for Oregon)
Sea otters were once found in nearshore waters across the Pacific Rim but were nearly hunted to extinction during the maritime fur trade of the 1700 and 1800s. While some populations have recovered over time in response to protections and past translocations, sea otters remain absent from nearly a thousand miles of their historical range, including the entirety of the Oregon coast. Join us to learn more about sea otters, their history, their role as a keystone species in the marine ecosystem, and why the possibility of bringing sea otters back to northern California and the Oregon coast is currently under consideration.
May 2023
3D Mapping of Puget Sound Shoreline
Brian Footen
Researcher with Earth View
EarthViews Conservation Society was created to address the immediate, and, indeed, existential need for waterway conservation in the western United States. The organization is presently advocating and facilitating the preservation, protection, and where necessary, rehabilitation of bays, lakes, rivers, and streams by digitally documenting and analyzing these critical and endangered components of our nation’s ecosystems.
Brian Footen has spent twenty plus years working as a fishery research biologist for federal, state and tribal agencies. He has a dual MS degree from The Evergreen State College and the University of Washington in Fishery Science and Environmental Studies. He is currently leading expeditions at EarthViews Conservation Society using modern mapping technology to document and advocate for waterway Conservation.
April 2023
Antarctic Adventures with Adopt-a-Float
Jennifer Magnusson
Outreach Support, GO-BGC/MBARI
Follow along with Jennifer on her journey to Antarctica to deploy ten biogeochemical (BGC) profiling floats for the GO-BGC and SOCCOM Adopt-a-Float program! This free program creates a powerful opportunity for students of all ages to engage directly with world-class scientists and learn about their research by naming and tracking floats. Jennifer will talk about the life of a BGC float, how you can adopt one for your classroom or educational setting, and how to access the data from the floats to use in your lessons and activities.
Jennifer is a marine biologist, educator, and graphic designer. Blazing her own winding trail in marine education, Jennifer has covered the whole Pacific coast, from her undergraduate studies in Baja California to her graduate research in Fairbanks, Alaska. Working from her home in Victoria, BC, she combines her desire to learn about and explore the oceans, her passion for ocean education and stewardship, and her talent for creating visual resources and lessons that make ocean education exciting and engaging for all audiences. She works for three non-profit organizations—MBARI, NAME, and NMEA—focusing on outreach, social media, website development, and science communication.
March 2023
“Wildernizing” our Youth with the Alaska Tides to Tongass Science and Arts Academy
Michaela Larson, Julia Trischman, Trick Trischman
Coordinator/Instructors of Alaska Tides to Tongass Science and Arts Academy
Three leaders of the Alaska Tides to Tongass Science and Arts Academy share what they are doing with the wilderness magnet school, offered through their public school district. This unique program brings a cohort of high school students from around the nation to their very remote, very small, town of Port Alexander, Alaska nestled in a biologically diverse, geologically interesting, beautiful wilderness setting for 9 weeks.
Michaela Larsen is the Coordinator for the coming ATTSAA session and an instructor for the program. Growing up in Southeast Alaska, she is delighted to share her love of the Alaska wilds and some of its important lessons with young people from far and wide. Michaela enjoys being on the ocean, foraging, beachbombing and exploring with her three kids and husband.
Julia Trischman has been an educator for nine years and involved with ATTSAA when it was just an idea three years ago. She grew up in Southwest Montana, but moved to Port Alexander in 2019 and fell in love with the deep connection of nature the Tongass National Forest and North Pacific Ocean has to offer her family. When Julia isn’t busy educating the future of society, or preserving food for her family, she can be found catching the sun and embracing nature with her husband, two kids, and two pups.
Patrick Trischman has also been involved with the ATTSAA program for the past three years. He teaches many of the core high school courses while the students are living in Port Alexander. Patrick loves being outside exploring our natural world.
December 2022
King Tides
Bridget Trosin from Washington Sea Grant and Jesse Jones from Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition will co-present on engaging the public with the reach of the king tides into coastal communities in Oregon and Washington. King tides offer a look into the future of sea level rise and documenting them through photography is one way to predict how coastal communities will be affected by increased flooding. The Washington King Tides Program and the Oregon King Tides Project work with the public every fall and winter to capture the effects of these tides and educate about climate change, using photography as a tool. Each will present about how they work in their respective states with schools and the general public.
November 2022
An Introduction to ShoreZone with Sarah Cook
ShoreZone is a standardized imaging and habitat mapping system that specializes in the collection and interpretation of low-altitude, oblique aerial imagery of the coastal environment. Video and still imagery are collected during the lowest tides of the year to fully capture the interface between land and sea. ShoreZone produces fully georeferenced coastal imagery along with a searchable inventory of physical and biological features of the intertidal and nearshore zones which can be used as a tool by scientists, educators, managers, and the public. Those uses have included blue carbon mapping, marine spatial planning, environmental assessment, and species and habitat modelling in addition to many others. Re-mapping of some areas in recent years has enabled the use of ShoreZone to analyze change over time. The oblique ShoreZone imagery has also been used in conjunction with satellite imagery and bathymetry datasets to create intertidal polygons as well as sensitive habitat polygons for salt marsh, dune grass, eelgrass and canopy kelps. ShoreZone is a publicly accessible dataset that has been created through a partnership of over 70 organizations from two countries including all levels of government, port authorities, First Nations and non-governmental organizations.
Sarah Cook (R.P.Bio) is a marine ecologist who specializes in coastal and subtidal habitat mapping. She has been privileged to study the benthic habitats of the Pacific Northwest for the past 20 years. Sarah has flown over 17,000 km of shoreline in a helicopter as part of the ShoreZone imaging team in BC, Alaska and recently in Nova Scotia.
October 2022
Engaging Youth in Environmental Justice
In this talk, learn how Dr. Mindy Chappell leveraged chemistry curriculum in collaboration with the Youth Participatory Science Collective to study heavy-metal contamination as an issue of environmental justice. Acknowledging that environmental issues are context-based, the focus of this talk will rely on personal experiential reflection and non-prescriptive strategies to help teachers and students navigate some of the challenges they might encounter when exploring issues of environmental justice in science classrooms. This talk is meant to be an avenue of hope for educators’ who want to leverage their agency and curricular resources to teach science from a social justice or justice-centered science pedagogy.