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<\/a><\/p>\nIn addition to the calculator conundrum is the lack of money to fund post-restoration monitoring.\u00a0 This is very unfortunate since examining any kind of project after the fact is the most important step in conservation and restoration!\u00a0 Without any kind of follow up there is no way to know if what you have done is sustainable, if it actually did what it was supposed to do, and if it is worth continuing.\u00a0 Furthermore, this post restoration analysis makes it possible to create a metric of success that will interest funders.\u00a0\u00a0 Since money seems to be the issue, I think it would be a great idea to train community member volunteers to gather this post-restoration data.\u00a0 Not only would this be relatively free of charge (besides the time it would take to train people), but I believe it would also be a great chance to educate local residents on a conservation issue that\u2019s right in their backyard and create pride and enthusiasm for protecting their environment.\u00a0 When dealing with any kind of conservation\/restoration issue, the two main questions that I feel are most important are: 1. What are the benefits associated with restoration and 2. What are the values lost when harm comes to the environment?<\/p>\n
As has been the case with other aspects of my internship, this phone call really exemplified the point that there needs to be better communication between the scientific and non-scientific community.\u00a0 Issues and topics need to be presented in a way that makes them seem approachable and like something that the general public could take part in.<\/p>\n In other news, I have finished my research for Travel Oregon!\u00a0 For the past four weeks I have been doing an online footprint analysis of each city\u2019s webpages as well as collecting information on lodging, shops, food, places to go, things to do, and events and festivals.\u00a0 Eventually this will all be fed into Travel Oregon\u2019s orb so it can populate the site and beef up the information on the South Coast (since it is currently lacking basically all areas of information).\u00a0 My next step will be to meet with people involved in the communities who are on our \u201cRural Tourism Steering Committee\u201d to run all the information by them, and just get a general feel for each town as well as the possible pros and cons of increasing tourism in the area.\u00a0 My hope is that the end product of this project will be two-fold: 1. A community calendar will be uploaded to the Travel Oregon site so that local events can be better publicized and visitors can plan trips around them. 2. That an interactive map will be available for each town\u2019s asset such that when you search for something, a map with its location as well as the locations of things to do around it pops up.<\/p>\n My internship has reached the halfway mark!\u00a0 This was celebrated at the Da Vinci Days festival in Corvallis where I got a chance to catch up with all the other interns and hear updates on their projects, work Sea Grant\u2019s both at the festival, and explore Corvallis further.\u00a0 Although the morning started off slowly, by the time noon came around (and the awesome all bike parade!) the festival was bustling and the Sea Grant booth had more visitors than we could handle.\u00a0 While the occasional passerby was interested in our summer projects, the majority were fixated with the green turtle shell display and Bubbles our live and invasive red-eared slider.\u00a0 As much as I would have loved to talk about my project (and believe me I could go on for hours\u2026) I was more excited that there were so many people who were curious about marine biology and were actually asking questions.\u00a0 Yay for the future generations of marine biologists!\u00a0 Another highlight of this wonderful weekend was getting the chance to hear the awe-inspiring Jane Lubchenco speak.\u00a0 To be in the presence of such a strong woman who has not only been an integral part in bridging the gap between the scientific and public communities, but is the first woman to serve as a NOAA administrator, gave me such hope for the future (not to mention many goose bumps)!\u00a0 I was however saddened to see that with the exception of my fellow scholars, there was basically no one else around our age in attendance.\u00a0 Just more proof that strengthening communication and involvement in science in paramount!<\/p>\n One trip down, one to go!\u00a0 This next week I will be leaving Bandon and venturing down to coast to the towns of Port Orford, Gold Beach, and Brookings!\u00a0 I\u2019m so excited to get to visit the places that up till now have only researched on the Internet.\u00a0 Curry County here I come!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greetings readers!\u00a0 I must admit that I have fallen a bit behind in my blog posts, but never fear because I have many new stories to tell, as well as some new adventures in my future!\u00a0 A couple weeks ago … Continue reading ![\"P7200052\"](\"http:\/\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5349\/9397514144_5f74683bef.jpg\")
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