NOAA scientist to lead Oregon Sea Grant program

Shelby WalkerCORVALLIS, Ore. – Shelby Walker, a marine scientist and administrative leader with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has been named director of Oregon Sea Grant.

She will assume leadership of Oregon Sea Grant, the Oregon State University-based marine research, outreach, education and communication program, on July 7.

Walker has been the strategic planning team leader for the Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation in NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research since August 2009. In that role, she has been responsible for the agency’s research and development planning efforts.

She also has been associate director for the NOAA RESTORE Act Science Program, an initiative funded through civil penalties resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that aims to increase scientific understanding of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem and improve the region’s sustainability.

Based at OSU, Oregon Sea Grant is one of the oldest programs in a national network of NOAA Sea Grant College Programs, dedicated to promoting environmental stewardship, long-term economic development and responsible use of America’s coastal, ocean and Great Lakes resources.

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Tsunami Preparedness Week – Are You Prepared?

Pat Corcoran visits Japan to see aftermath of tsunami, 2012It’s Tsunami Preparedness Week, and Pat Corcoran wants to make sure people who live on -and visit – the seismically active coast know what to do when the big wave hits.

Corcoran, Oregon Sea Grant’s coastal hazards specialist, is featured this week on the NOAA Sea Grant home page, and says the single most important thing to know about tsunamis is that they can happen unexpectedly. “Whenever visiting the ocean shore, be prepared to move to high ground if you experience an earthquake,” says Corcoran. “Also important to know, is the earthquake and tsunami experience is different depending on where you are in the world. In the Pacific Northwest of the USA, our natural warning for a big tsunami is a big earthquake.” Elsewhere in the world, people may not even feel the ground shake.

Corcoran has spent more than a decade educating and working with coastal residents and communities to help them prepare for coastal hazards, from storms to the inevitability that a large earthquake – likely with an accompanying tsunami – will strike the region in the not-too-distant future. The challenge, he says, is getting people to understand that they need to prepare now for an event that has never happened in their lifetimes, or perhaps those of their parents or grandparents.

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WISE Blog: On Lionfish

Lionfish (photo by Michael Harte)Danielle Goodrich, writing in Oregon Sea Grant’s Watershed and Invasive Species Education blog, summarizes the devastation invasive, predatory lionfish (Pterois volitans) are wreaking on marine ecosystems of the Atlantic Ocean, and cites a recent Oregon State University study offering some hope that these beautiful yet voracious fish might be controlled without complete eradication. Like the rest of the WISE Blog, Danielle’s article offers resources for K-12 teachers who want to incorporate invasive species education into their science lessons.

 

Fossil Fest rescheduled for April 26

Oregon coast fossilsNEWPORT –  Guy “Oregon Fossil Guy” DiTorrice returns OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center on Saturday, April 26, for this year’s edition of the popular Fossil Fest – rescheduled from early February due to snow.

DiTorrice, a longtime fossil hunter and lecturer, joins Dr. William Orr for special presentations about fossil finds in Oregon and elsewhere. Mike Full, a local Pleistocene fossil hound, and Newport’s own Kent Gibson will show exhibits of amazing Oregon fossils, and the American Research Group will host additional displays and hands-on activities for the whole family. Visitors are invited to bring their own “mystery fossils” for expert identification.

Schedule:

  • 11:30 am – Guy DiTorrice speaks about seeking and finding dinosaur fossils at the Montana ranch where parts of Jurassic Park were filmed, including Duckbill (Hadrosaurus) dig sites .
  • 1:30 pm – Dr. Bill Orr, “In Search of the Conodont Animal” – a talk about the recent discovery of a small fish-like animal that has for 150 years been a mystery to the paleontology community. The Conodonts are one of the most important guide fossils to the entire Paleozoic interval of time: a duration of 300 million years, and the discovery has stirred immense interest among paleontologists.

All day:

  • Mike Full’s “Willamette Valley Pleistocene Project” display captures a glimpse of 50,000 years of prehistory in our own backyard. Giant bison and wooly mammoth fossils will be on display.
  • Kent Gibson, who has provided fossils to the Smithsonian’s collection will display a cross-section of fossils found in Lincoln County, including dolphin skulls, scallops, and whale vertebrata.

All events take place in the HMSC Visitor Center, which is open to the public from 10 am to 4 pm.

For more information, visit the HMSC Visitor Center Website.

Oregon Sea Grant partners in new regional STEM Hub grant

Youngsters explore wave energy lab at HMSCNEWPORT – Oregon Sea Grant is partnering with the Lincoln County School District to create a new Oregon Coast Regional STEM Hub to serve coastal communities from Astoria to Coos Bay.

The effort, under a $644,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Education, will be based at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center under the guidance of Sea Grant’s marine education team. The goal is to help equip teachers to better provide STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education to k-12 students.

The grant is to the Lincoln County School District, which is partnering with Sea Grant, Tillamook School District and the Oregon Coast Aquarium. The new STEM Hub is one of six across Oregon intended to foster 21st Century career skills, particularly for historically under-served student populations. The new Oregon Coast Regional STEM Hub will help provide coastal schools and educators with the tools and support necessary to deliver world-class STEM instruction to rural students.

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Sea Grant survey: Coastal professionals, managers concerned about climate change

High surf at Fishing RockThe American public may be divided over whether climate is changing, but coastal managers and elected officials in nine states say they see the change happening—and believe their communities will need to adapt.

That’s one finding from a NOAA Sea Grant research project, led by Oregon Sea Grant and involving multiple other Sea Grant programs, which surveyed coastal leaders in selected parts of the nation’s Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf and Great Lakes coasts, as well as Hawaii.

Three quarters of coastal professionals surveyed – and 70% of all participants – said they believe that the climate in their area is changing—a marked contrast to results of some national surveys of the broader American public which have found diverse and even polarized views about climate change and global warming.

The Sea Grant survey was developed to understand what coastal/resource professionals and elected officials think about climate change, where their communities stand in planning for climate adaptation and what kinds of information they need, said project leader Joe Cone, assistant director of Oregon Sea Grant.  Sea Grant programs in Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois-Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington—states that represent most of NOAA’s coastal regions—took part, administering the survey at various times between January 2012 and November 2013.

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