Outreach and New Researchers

This week has been a lot of fun, as we returned to the lab from the winter storm. We got to kick off the slightly delayed semester by welcoming a new researcher in our lab - an undergraduate student who I am supervising for her MAR 490 course. One of the aspects of the marine science undergraduate degree at USM is a hands-on approach to learning in the marine sciences. Students can earn credit through a science-related internship (from what I understand) or they can take MAR 490, which is an independent research course. During MAR 490, students complete a research project developed by the MAR 490 supervisor (faculty member), which could be experimental research, computational work, or a combination. This semester, our student is working on evaluating the response of model groups from our ecosystem model to sediment in the water column. Total suspended solids or TSS-as the name suggests-are materials in the water column that do not actively dissolve in water. TSS can affect animals and plants by weighing them down or making it hard to feed. Take an oyster, for example. Oysters filter feed by pumping water through their gills and they trap plankton within the mucus of their gills. However, anything that the oysters do not want to consume they need to pass, all the while expending energy to extract particles of interest. Therefore, if there are large quantities of TSS, the oysters have to expend a lot of energy to filter out the plankton from the mass of particles, and they may require more energy than they gain from the food itself. Visual predators like fishes, sharks, etc., may have difficulty finding prey items if the water is clouded by suspended solids. Eventually we hope to add information about TSS responses to our model in the form of response curves, so our student is working on the data collection and analysis steps required to generate these response curves.

Additionally, tomorrow I will be giving an outreach presentation to a class of 4th graders in Michigan. I am a proud collaborator with Skype A Scientist (https://www.skypeascientist.com/) which connects teachers with scientists across the world. Scientists volunteer their time and teachers can request a virtual visit from a scientist to talk about or answer questions on a topic of the teacher's choosing. Tomorrow I will be answering questions all about the Great Lakes and invasive species, and while neither of these are topics of my own research, I am still prepared to answer questions from these excited students and show them easy-to-access and easy-to-use resources to learn more about invasive species. The students have specifically asked if there are ways they can learn more, especially with maps and graphics, and I can't wait to show them GLANSIS - the Great Lakes Aquatic Nonindigenous Species Information System - where they can create maps and lists, and learn all about invasive species in their local area. As a bonus, GLANSIS is really easy for teachers to use, and it has an entire guide on how to use the system for educational purposes. Here's a snapshot of GLANSIS showing sightings of zebra mussels in the Great Lakes and the surrounding areas.

​I cannot wait to talk with these kids and hopefully encourage some of them to pursue science careers the way so many of my educators did for me and my brother. If you are a science professional or an educator interested in getting involved with Skype A Scientist, please consider clicking the link above to learn more and to sign up. Sharing your knowledge with a classroom of students only takes 30 minutes to an hour and you largely control when you are presenting, so there's lots of flexibility. 

---