New Sea Grant videos demonstrate how to use StreamWebs kits

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Two new videos from Oregon Sea Grant demonstrate how to collect and identify aquatic insects and test water quality using kits available from StreamWebs.girl-with-dipnet

One of the videos, How to use StreamWebs’ macroinvertebrate kit, shows educators how to teach students to collect and identify aquatic insects using the macroinvertebrate kit and data sheets. The other, How to use StreamWebs’ LaMotte water quality kit, shows how to teach students to test water quality using a kit with equipment made by LaMotte.

The kits are among several that educators can borrow from StreamWebs, a program administered by Oregon Sea Grant. StreamWebs provides educators with field equipment, data sheets, lesson plans and training so they can teach students how to collect data about the health of waterways. It also provides an online database where students can enter and analyze the information they gathered.

Both videos were produced by Oregon Sea Grant’s Renee O’Neill and Vanessa Cholewczynski and shot and edited by Cholewczynski. Special thanks to Angela Clegg with the South Santiam Watershed Council; students from Foster Elementary School in Sweet Home, Oregon; Grayson Johnston; and Zethan Brandenburger.

Oregon residents: Take the Oregon Coastal Values survey

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Photo of Oregon coast

A research team at Portland State University is conducting a survey of Oregonians to find out how Oregon residents use and value the coast and ocean. The survey asks for your opinions on marine management activities and your preferences for future management. It also includes an online mapping activity, allowing you to indicate places on the coast that are important to you and to recommend changes in the management of areas.

The goal of the survey is to reach a broad set of adult residents who have lived in Oregon for a year or more. The research team also wants to make sure they hear from people across the state, including eastern and southern Oregon. Please feel free to share this link with others via e-mail, social media, or any other way you feel comfortable.

This project is funded by Oregon Sea Grant, and findings will be shared in a final report to managers, researchers, and the public. All responses will be anonymous, and only summaries of findings will be shared.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Paul Manson, a Ph.D. student researcher at Portland State University: mansonp@pdx.edu. You may also contact the project’s principal investigator, Elise Granek, at graneke@pdx.edu. The research team is also on Twitter.

Barnacles for dinner? Could be!

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gooseneck barnaclesIn Spain, a plate of gooseneck barnacles will set you back more than the cost of a lobster dinner. Known as percebes, goosenecks “set the palate in ecstasy,” a Barcelona chef recently told a reporter. Nevertheless, Julia Bingham winced a little last spring when asked if she had ever tried the tube-shaped delicacies while she was studying them as an undergraduate at Oregon State University.

“I get that question a lot, and it kills me to say ‘no,’” said Bingham, who had gingerly navigated the wave-tossed shore of Cape Perpetua to collect barnacle samples for her University Honors College thesis. “It’s supposed to be sweeter than crab or lobster and taste like the ocean.”

Read the whole story about Bingham’s Oregon Sea Grant-funded research in Terra.

OSG’s Sam Chan off to Washington, D.C.

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Sam Chan

Sam Chan, Oregon Sea Grant’s Extension watersheds and aquatic invasive species specialist, is headed to Washington, D.C. for a one-year assignment as National Extension Program Lead with the NOAA Sea Grant office.

He starts there July 18, but is driving from Oregon to the East Coast with stops to visit several Great Lakes Sea Grant programs and to deliver the keynote address at the National Conference on Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products.

In Chan’s absence, Tania Siemens will handle invasive species outreach and education for Oregon Sea Grant.

“Shop at the Dock” in 2016 for fresh seafood, fisheries education

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July 11, 2016

NEWPORT – What started as an experiment to help bring new customers to fishermen who sold seafood off their vessels has quickly become a favorite summer activity for a growing number of locals and visitors in Newport.

shop-the-dockSponsored and run by Oregon Sea Grant in partnership with the Port of Newport, “Shop on the Dock” in 2016 is entering its third summer of offering free, guided educational tours of Newport’s commercial fishing docks. Shoppers learn a bit about the fisheries, meet the people who catch the fish, and have an opportunity to buy the freshest salmon, tuna, halibut and crab, usually at prices lower than they’d find at their local supermarkets.

The summer of 2016 will see more walks spread over two months – July 15, 22 and 29, and Aug. 5, 12 and 19 – and having multiple walks (at 9:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.) each date.

“It’s like going down to the docks with a friend who knows the seafood – and knows the fishermen,” said Kaety Jacobson, Sea Grant’s Newport-based Extension fisheries specialist, who runs the program. “We make it easy for people.”

Learn more:

New curriculum explores microplastics in the sea

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Microplastics on a Hawaiian beachA new middle school science curriculum from Oregon Sea Grant guides teachers and their 6th- through 8th-grade students through the growing threat to our oceans posed by microplastics – tiny particles of plastic which wind up in the sea.

Microplastics – particles less than five millimeters in size that deteriorate from larger plastic pieces, as well as plastic “microbeads” used in personal care products such as face and body scrubs – have emerged as a growing ocean pollution concern due to their small size and persistence in the environment.

A 2015 study published in Environmental Science & Technology estimated that eight trillion microbeads were entering aquatic environments throughout the United States every day. When consumed by crustaceans, shellfish and other marine animals, the plastics can affect reproduction, growth and survival.

The new, 70-page curriculum, compiled by Marie Kowalski, a recent graduate of OSU’s Marine Resource Management program in collaboration with Oregon Sea Grant’s marine program manager, Tracy Crews, includes three lessons designed to engage students with the issue by analyzing the problem and investigating possible solutions.

The lessons include opportunities for student inquiry, as well as collaboration and engagement with real data collected by researchers working in the field. Each lesson includes an estimated length, which will vary by classroom. The entire curriculum is designed to take about one week, but may be extended by including a project at the end of the curriculum.

The curriculum is available, free of charge, as an accessible .pdf download from the Oregon Sea Grant Website.

Learn more:

OSG specialist to serve up Pacific albacore in Washington, D.C.

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Kaety and tunaNEWPORT – Kaety Jacobson, Oregon Sea Grant fisheries specialist, is packing her bags – and then some – for a trip to the nation’s capital to take part in the 41st annual NOAA Fish Fry.

Thanks to a donation from the Oregon Albacore Commission, Jacobson will travel with 250 lbs of fresh-frozen albacore tuna loin portions – and a recipe for tuna poke, a Hawaiian-style marinated tuna salad, courtesy of Newport’s Local Ocean Seafoods restaurant.

The Fish Fry, a popular summer event sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association runs Wednesday, June 8th from 6pm – 9pm at the Herbert C. Hoover Main Commerce Building on 14th St. and Constitution Avenue.  The event promotes public understanding of aquaculture and sustainable marine fisheries.

Sea Grant programs from around the country were invited to take part during our 50th anniversary year to showcase the variety of sustainable seafood from in the nation’s ocean and Great Lakes states.

Summer hours start at HMSC Visitor Center

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Touch tanks allow visitors of all ages to interact with sea urchins, anemones and other tide pool creaturesNEWPORT – Summer hours start Tuesday, May 31 at our Visitor Center at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center.

From then until Labor Day, the Visitor Center will be open from 10 am to 5 pm seven days a week, with new exhibits, trained interpreters, animal feedings and programs designed to engage people of all ages in exploring and learning about Oregon’s dynamic coast and ocean.

To find out about upcoming activities, events and special programs, bookmark the Visitor Center’s home page.

The Center is operated by Oregon Sea Grant, and also houses our Marine Education program, which sponsors many summer day camps, classes and special activities for K-12 learners and families.

Science Pub takes on coral reef decline

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CORVALLIS – Research on the worldwide decline in coral reefs will take center stage at the Corvallis Science Pub on Monday, May 9.

Rebecca Vega-Thurber investigates the microbial ecology of reefs in the Red Sea, the Caribbean and the Pacific and will describe what she has learned about how microbes influence reef health.

“Coral species differ in their susceptibility to bleaching and disease, but these differences are only partially explained by the evolutionary history of corals,” said Vega-Thurber, an assistant professor of microbiology at Oregon State University.

Science Pub is free and open to the public. It begins at 6 p.m. at the Old World Deli, 341 S.W. Second St. in Corvallis.

Learn more:

Oregon Sea Grant publication wins Silver Award of Distinction

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Oregon Sea Grant has won a Silver Award of Distinction in the 2016 Communicator Awards competition, for its field guide Key Aquatic Invasive Species Watch: Japanese Tsunami Marine Debris in the Eastern Pacific.CommSilver1

According to the Communicator Awards’ website, the competition is sanctioned and judged by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, “an invitation-only group consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, communications, advertising, creative and marketing firms.” The competition, which receives “over 6,000 entries from companies and agencies of all sizes,” honors work that “transcends innovation and craft – work that made a lasting impact.”

The Award of Distinction is presented for “projects that exceed industry standards in quality and achievement.”

You can download a free PDF or order printed copies of Key Aquatic Invasive Species Watch here.