Environmental Education Speaker Series

Mt.

Photo by Mark Turner (turnerphotographics.com)

There’s never been a more exciting time to be a cartographer than now! In fact, when it comes to defining society in the spaces where we live, we all participate in cartography in one way or another. This talk will encourage the entire audience to create maps, and to do so with boldness and creativity. We’ll touch upon some cartography rules, why they are important, and how to expertly break them.

Scientific discoveries are often the result of serendipity- including the discovery of something completely unexpected which leads to more questions than answers. A chance recording of bowhead whales in Disko Bay, Greenland, and piggy-backing a hydrophone on an oceanographic mooring in Fram Strait revealed unexpected information about bowhead whale singing behavior.  Many tens of distinct songs are sung by a population in a single season.

African parks are home to many species of threatened wildlife, with relatively small teams employed to protect them. This project uses a branch of artificial intelligence called machine learning to automatically analyze both daytime and nighttime (infrared) aerial imagery from the parks to then alert park rangers to potential threats. The goal of this technology is to allow for more efficient deployment of the rangers to stop poaching and other illegal activity. Prior knowledge about machine learning/technology is not required!

Pacific oysters are an integral part of Puget Sound's ecology, economy, and culture. However, the environmental, economic, and social benefits of oysters are endangered by ocean acidification. In this talk, This talk will explore how ocean acidification affects multiple generations of oysters. Temporarily exposing adult Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) to low pH prior to gametogenesis affects larval abundance.

Nearshore foundation habitats including seagrass meadows and kelp forests are faced with many stressors from climate change to local development and harvest pressures. Changing distribution and productivity of these habitats can have large effects on ecosystem services, such as climate change mitigation and local food security. Growing evidence suggests that the effects of habitat change are intimately linked across nearshore habitats, such that transformation of interconnected seascapes affects ecosystem functions such as carbon sequestration and nursery function.

Ocean acidification (OA) threatens marine resources and coastal communities around the Salish Sea. These threats have spurred action to address the causes and consequences of OA. Intensified research and monitoring have advanced our understanding of ocean acidification and its effects on local marine life, public processes have led to legislation, and education and outreach have promoted understanding across diverse audiences.

Indigenous Peoples of North America have always had to accommodate and respond to environmental change. Oral histories, recollections of contemporary elders, and terms in their numerous languages have allowed understandings of responses to change, most recently since the colonial era. Traditional knowledge systems incorporate adaptive capacity.