On June 1st, 2022 Dr. Jason Hodin of the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs presented the "Our Acidifying Ocean" program and an overview of related environmental curricular tools for both inside and outside the classroom. Our Acidifying Ocean provides a meaningful, accurate and interactive educational content for high school and college students regarding ocean acidification. This single module on the website VirtualUrchin was the seed for a series of web- and field-based educational projects connecting ocean acidification to related environmental concerns. Dr. Hodin presented the first major update to Our Acidifying Ocean with current data, enriched content, and an activity focused on student action. Webinar participants walked away with an introduction to these education tools that brings real ocean acidification research to learners.

High school students around Chesapeake Bay are helping to solve the mystery of how water chemistry and oysters interact. In this webinar, Emily Rivest, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and Bart Merrick, NOAA Environmental Science Training Center, will introduce the CSI: Oyster project, a community science initiative focused on understanding how water chemistry and other aspects of water quality affect oyster survival and growth. Where, with two high schools in Virginia and Maryland, they collected oyster and water data for one year. The speakers will share the results uncovered with their high school partners and also share the benefits of participating in this project for the students.

 

Puerto Rico is home to vibrant coral reef ecosystems that support a diversity of marine life and livelihoods. Join Melissa Melendez, University of Hawai'i Manoa and Lisamarie Carrubba, NOAA Fisheries' Office of Protected Resources, as they  share our journey in creating Spanish-language videos (with English subtitles) about ocean acidification, its causes, consequences, research and possible solutions for the Puerto Rican public and island visitors. The video invites viewers to get involved in community actions that reduce other stressors to marine organisms and increase their resilience to the effects of ocean acidification. A full length and short video (highlighting key messages) were created in collaboration with a number of NOAA and non-NOAA partners, including the University of Puerto Rico and Paradise SCUBA and Snorkeling Center, and produced by a local videographer, Efra Visuals.

In this webinar Erin Winslow, PhD candidate at the University of California Santa Barbara acknowledges that communicating ocean acidification is a challenge for scientists, researchers, educators, and professionals alike. Arguably one of the greatest obstacles to productive conversations about ocean acidification is the absence of clear, concise, and consistent messaging of complicated processes. Successful messaging can be established by utilizing language that is digestible and constant across educational landscapes. The National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI) supported by the National Science Foundation established a framework for communicating climate science, and specifically ocean acidification, to the general public. During this presentation, the process and lessons learned in creating visual aids with specific examples of how ocean acidification impacts ecosystems in various geographic regions is discussed. Each infographic has the same general layout and consistent messaging, tailored to each ocean region. The visual aids simplify current climate and ocean change research to articulate why ocean acidification is occurring, how it is impacting our ocean, and also provide actionable solutions for viewers.

 

View the recording here!

During this presentation Amy Dean of NOAA's Data in the Classroom and Kari St. Laurent of the Delaware National Estuariene Research Reserve walk though the science of ocean and coastal acidification along with how to use NOAA's new ocean acidification Data in the Classroom module.

Watch the recording here!