Session Descriptions--nmea 2016 Sessions are listed alphabetically by primary presenter’s last name. Allen

kasey@mote.org, @opallord; kbhull@mote.org

Mote Marine Laboratory’s High School Internship Program runs the duration of the school year, allowing Mote’s instructors and scientists to build strong relationships with each student and foster his/her interest in science. As students become more involved in the program and gain confidence in their teaching abilities, they are able to support Mote’s mission of spreading ocean literacy and stewardship. During the research component, students gain hands on experience in the field and in the lab collecting and analyzing scientific data while working with researchers. Some examples have been studying human/dolphin conflicts and tagging rays. Students are required to meet twice monthly to complete research projects and are scheduled for mandatory volunteer shifts to assist the Education Division with programming. During meetings, this program has a strong emphasis on public speaking skills and professional development to ready the students for college and career life. In addition to these basic requirements, interns are invited to participate in many optional learning opportunities including workshops with Mote’s Research and Aquarium staff, behind the scenes tours and field trips to off-site facilities. Structuring the internship with mandatory requirements and voluntary opportunities allows the students the freedom to choose their level of involvement while still meeting the internship program’s goals. To start an extracurricular program for high school students, it’s important to establish goals for both the students and organization to meet. Designate a mentor that has time to commit to building the program and communicating with students. Develop a structure for the program that will meet the organization’s goals and motivate teens. Lastly, recruit interested students that understand and will commit to the requirements of the program. Creating a long-term extracurricular program for high school students is time and resource intensive, but the investment will offer many returns to informal learning organizations.

jim.gelsleichter@unf.edu

Recently, there has been growing concern about the ecological and human health risks posed by pharmaceutical-related pollutants originating from human excretion. These compounds can have unexpected and often profound effects on non-target species because many drugs function by altering biological processes that are common in most organisms. Since these contaminants enter the natural environment primarily through domestic and industrial wastewater discharge, they pose their greatest threats to wildlife residing in aquatic habitats bordering highly populated regions. However, there has been very little research conducted on the exposure to and uptake of these pollutants in aquatic species. In this presentation, we discuss data on the presence and concentrations of widely prescribed human pharmaceuticals in juvenile bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) residing in wastewater-impacted Florida rivers. Several of the compounds examined have been detected in surface waters of aquatic ecosystems and the tissues of aquatic organisms in previous studies. Some have also been shown to be capable of altering reproduction and/or embryonic development in aquatic vertebrates. Juvenile bull sharks depend on freshwater and brackish rivers as “nursery grounds,” areas that are believed to provide young fish with protection from predators and abundant food to sustain high survival and rapid growth to maturity. Since these habitats are increasingly contaminated by wastewater-related pollutants including human pharmaceuticals, it is important to assess the risks that these contaminants pose to this unique species By doing so, our larger study will contribute valuable data on a non-fishing related human activity that may adversely affect Essential Fish Habitat for C. leucas.

andy.gould@ncaquariums.com

Through a partnership between Pine Valley Elementary School and the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, we trained 75 2-4th graders to monitor wetland health and identify frog and toad calls. During their training, students were exposed to the science of wildlife population monitoring, amphibian biology and anatomy, wetland structure and health, graphing and interpreting data, species prevalence and diversity based on geographic variation, and the ecological and cultural significance of amphibians around the world. Once trained, students had the opportunity to meet at a local wetland and monitor for amphibians, or participate in the classroom through recordings taken from the field. During the project, we witnessed examples of growth in student confidence, and students deepening connection with nature. During this presentation, we will discuss how this partnership came to be, and how educators could utilize FrogWatch USA and other citizen science projects with their students. We will discuss how we overcame obstacles of funding and evening monitoring. We will allow participants to try out the math and geography lessons developed for students, show how participants can use FrogWatch Data to create their own lessons, and allow participants to try out amphibian monitoring for themselves.

ggraeber@disl.org

Longlining, gillnetting, and shrimp packing, oh my! Does immersive professional development lead to learning outcomes for teachers? Come get schooled (We are talking fisheries!) by the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) about our week-long MS/AL Sea Grant Consortium funded professional development opportunity for educators. The FFF program is a six year funded program for teachers to see fisheries science across a broad spectrum of subjects: ranging from ichthyoplankton early life stages to modern fisheries lab and field techniques to aquaculture and finally culminating with a field trip to a shrimp processor. The mixture of classroom activities, various field-based sampling, morphology studies, and lectures from fisheries scientists has culminated into a highly beneficial learning experience for teachers. How beneficial? Come join the DISL educators and find out!

 The effects of elevated pCO₂ on the Florida stone crab embryonic development, hatching success, and larval survival.

Coastal habitats frequently experience fluctuations in seawater carbonate chemistry that result in pH changes that exceed current predictions for the next century. The embryonic and larval stages of many coastal species may not have the physiological ability to detect, respond, or tolerate shifts in the baseline pCO₂ that are forecast to occur in coastal areas over the next century. The Florida stone crab, Menippe mercenaria, was used as a model for coastal crustaceans to determine the impact of elevated pCO₂ on embryonic development, hatching success and larval development. Ovigerous females were maintained in environments characteristic of present-day (pCO₂ ~ 360 ppm, pH = 8.1) and future (pCO₂ ~ 1500 ppm, pH = 7.5) carbonate conditions. The elevated pCO₂ treatment significantly reduced the rate of embryonic development (i.e., time to hatching) by ~32%, but no effect on the size of developing embryos (embryonic volume). Larvae that successfully hatched were not morphologically different among treatments. However, hatching success was 38% lower in the elevated pCO₂ treatment, while larval survival was drastically lower than the control (70% reduction). Together, these results indicate that future changes in seawater pCO₂ may result in reduced reproductive output and larval survival in stone crabs despite being exposed to coastal environments with variable carbonate chemistry. Reductions in reproductive output and larval survival could have potential socioeconomic implications for the stone crab fishery, unless the crabs are able to acclimatize or adapt to future seawater conditions. 

Greely, Teresa; Angela Lodge Poster #2

greely@usf.edu; alodge@usf.edu

The Florida based C-IMAGE research consortium is engaging teachers in Gulf Oil Spill Science. Through a professional development series CIMAGE teachers are exploring Gulf open ocean research from the Sea Surface to the Sea Floor. Professional development opportunities include a Teacher’s at Sea program, training and GLOBE certification for extended environmental monitoring, and ship to shore communications using social media. C-IMAGE Research to understand: 1) oil below the sea floor and its toxicity level, 2) the longterm consequences of oil on the marine food web—plankton and microbes, and 3) the health of fishes and longterm sublethal consequences of oil and dispersant. C-IMAGE Teachers are developing Teaching Modules for grades 6-12 classrooms that capture key components of the C-IMAGE’s Gulf research with hopes of engaging students in the excitement of ocean research and lessons learned from our mistakes.

The C-IMAGE offshore Teachers at Sea program immerses teachers in how research is conducted in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. While aboard teachers join the science party working 12 hour shifts to conduct authentic, field-based research. Whew, with little sleep, lots of excitement and endless science research happens. Specific research includes collecting bottom dwelling fishes for toxicology students, processing plankton samples to analyze changes in population dynamics, and gathering sediment cores to monitor toxicology and oil burial process. Teachers share that they leave the experience understanding the field components of research and the standards based science concepts embedded in the research.The C-IMAGE nearshore Environmental Monitoring program trains teachers to use science generated protocols to monitor atmosphere, hydrology and soils in their part of Florida. Teachers become certified to collect data for scientists around the world by using GLOBE protocols. The monitoring strategies selected for teachers onshore, parallel many of those used by scientists at sea while monitoring the health of the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. GLOBE teachers return to their classrooms to engage their students as ‘citizen scientists’ who can collect environmental science data to share with other students and scientists worldwide, conduct in class research and science projects. Initial evaluation of activities reveals that C-IMAGE professional developments are increasing teacher understanding of field research and Gulf of Mexico (GoM) science and recovery, personalizing scientific discoveries through direct scientist-teacher experiences, and engaging a new generation of GoM citizen scientists through environmental monitoring via GLOBE protocols that parallel environmental monitoring of the Gulf of Mexico. Come aboard to learn more and signup to join a C-IMAGE professional development opportunity.

Greene, Angela; Lyndsey Manzo Wednesday, 3:15 pm, Oceans 10

greene.792@osu.edu, @AngelaGreene12; @LyndseyManzo

This session was inspired by Maia McGuire’s microplastics presentation at the 2015 NMEA conference in Newport, Rhode Island. The conference room was entirely too small to house Maia’s enormous audience; many participants were seated in the door jam and hallway. This made it difficult to connect with the valuable information being delivered during the session. What if there was way to make a more personal connection with a large audience in our presentations? How can we ensure that all our session participants are actively engaged? Is there a way to instantly gauge the thoughts and perceptions of individual members of a big crowd of stakeholders so that we know how our message is being received? The purpose of this session is to introduce participants to a new way to present a message, in this case Maia McGuire’s microplastics presentation, to an audience using an application called Nearpod. Session attendees will need wireless connectivity and a personal device such as a laptop, tablet or smart phone. Participants are encouraged to download the free Nearpod app prior to the session or simply access the technology from nearpod.com.

dguay1@une.edu, @davidguay

Experiential learning in a meaningful context has been demonstrated to have a positive effect achievement and retention of undergraduate college students, particularly in STEM fields. The University of New England has launched Project TURBO (The Undergraduate Saco River Biodiversity Observatory), an NSF-funded initiative to provide undergraduate students with authentic interdisciplinary research experiences in lab-based courses throughout all four years of their curriculum; all data from these projects is archived into a searchable database to serve as a long-term study too for monitoring the biology, ecology, and oceanography of the Saco River and Saco Bay, and ultimately support informed policy decisions for the area. The Department of Marine Sciences at UNE has revised its second-year curriculum around Project TURBO, with an advanced Marine Biology (MAR 250) course in the Fall and Oceanography (MAR 270) in the Spring semester. Both courses are taught with traditional lecture sections that introduce concepts and principles, but they are are structured around the context of long-term investigative laboratory projects; several of which span across both semesters. The topics investigated include changes in the distribution and abundance of rocky intertidal organisms, seasonal changes in the fish community, the effects of ocean acidification on the local soft-shell clam population, seasonal changes in the plankton community of Saco Bay, and the physical and chemical oceanography of the Saco River estuary. For each project, students develop questions to study, work collaborative to collect a standard set of data that are archived for future use, analyze subsets of the data relevant to their questions, and offer interpretations. Projects are presented as written papers, poster and/or oral presentations. This presentation gives an overview of changes to the 200-level sophomore-year Marine Science curriculum and the role that authentic research experiences play in developing necessary skills and competencies in our four majors: Marine Sciences (Marine Biology Concentration), Marine Sciences (Oceanography concentration), Marine Affairs, and Marine Entrepreneurship (an interdisciplinary major with the Department of Business). The presenters will discuss several of the marine biology, marine ecology, and oceanography projects used in the sophomore sequence, showing examples of student work and demonstrating the online TURBO database. The presentation will also examine preliminary data on the effects of Project TURBO’s incorporation into the Marine Sciences curriculum, with focus on recruitment and retention, skill competencies, and the meeting of departmental and course student learning outcomes. Handouts of select research project activities will be available to session attendees, and links to electronic resources will be provided. Project TUBRO is funded by NSF-1431955.

thallesy@illinois.edu

Coastal ocean waters and the Great Lakes have been impacted by chemicals from pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP’s). Pharmaceuticals, or prescribed medications, are ingested by consumers in an effort to treat disease. Personal care products, items used as part of our daily beauty and hygiene routines, are introduced to the waste system as they are rinsed down our sink and bathtub drains. Unused PPCP’s that are not properly disposed of often make their way into water which we consume in one form or another. This can be directly, through drinking water sources from which these chemicals are not removed, or indirectly, for example, crops fertilized with animal waste, which contains residual antibiotics and estrogenic and androgenic steroids. The impacts from these chemicals range from harming fish and other wildlife, to negative effects on human health. Beyond the water pollution aspect, unused or expired medications that are not disposed of in a proper and timely manner also create an opportunity for misuse, theft and poisoning. This issue involves many sectors of our society, from the companies who develop and market drugs, to the physicians and veterinarians who prescribe them. Learn about this emerging issue from GL Sea Grant educators involved with the Center for Great Lakes Literacy, who have incorporated lessons and activities into their workshops. The materials covered in this NMEA presentation have been successfully shared with formal and informal educators interested in this environmental issue. Receive a jump drive full of curricula and information on how to get this message out to students and other stakeholders.

chalver@berkeley.edu; cstrang@berkeley.edu, @CraigStrang2

chalver@berkeley.edu; cstrang@berkeley.edu, @CraigStrang2