Interactive Dioramas for the Classroom

Gina Contolini, UCSC

 

Abstract: Looking for an easy way to teach the next generation of scientists about studying the ocean? Interested in lending your expertise to a local school? The Raimondi-Carr Lab at UCSC can help! They have developed a lesson to expose students to the nearshore marine ecosystems of Monterey Bay. The lesson encourages participants to think critically about ecology, teaches basic animal and algae identification skills, introduces the concept of long-term monitoring, and guides students through hypothesis development and simple analysis of long-term monitoring results. Rather than by lecture, students learn by “climbing” through the intertidal, and “swimming” through the kelp forest to collect their own data. The lesson is easily adaptable to students in 1st – 8th grades, and was designed to allow for add-on activities such as graph making, independent or group research on a marine species, or – the crowd favorite – trying on field clothes and SCUBA gear to promote an enthusiasm for ecology and careers in science. Your graduate department likely has everything you'll need to take this type of lesson to elementary classrooms in your community. Find us at the expo to learn how!

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Bio: Gina is a senior graduate student in the Raimondi lab at UC Santa Cruz. Her thesis research combines mussel bed communities, predator-prey interactions, and ocean acidification. She also enjoys teaching people about marine biology, especially in the field.

 

 

The Sea Star's Lament: Engaging Broad Audiences Through Dance and Video

Monica Moritsch, UCSC

 

Abstract: What if your study topic looks "boring"? Not boring to you, of course, but to a general audience. Videos capture dynamic subjects displaying interesting and visually engaging behavior. Not all organisms or processes lend themselves to viral videos. They may not move in wild ways or produce eye-popping changes on a time scale that holds human attention. However, there are other ways to tell a story that do not require using the organisms themselves. Dancing or acting out a topic provides visual flair and introduces relatability to the characters involved.

Monica used dance to communicate how the recent Sea Star Wasting Syndrome epidemic decimated ochre star populations and changed the species composition of the intertidal community over the following years. The resulting video made the topics of disease and community change more visually dynamic and relatable on a human scale. Producing a dance performance provided the opportunity to engage a group of people (dancers in the video and followers of dance-related social media) that otherwise might not hear about Sea Star Wasting Syndrome or the broader ecological concepts surrounding it. Additionally, entering this video into an international contest allowed this story to reach scientists across major study domains such as physics, chemistry, biology, and social science. In her talk, she will discuss the story development process and tips for those interested in using dance to communicate science.

 

Bio: Monica, a former MARINE Liaison, is interested in marine ecology, trophic relationships, and conservation. She is a nearly-graduated member of the Raimondi-Carr lab at UCSC and will soon be looking for employment with local environmental nonprofits.

 

 

A Low-Cost Control System for Climate Change Experiments

Natalie Low, Stanford

 

Abstract: Climate change is increasingly exposing marine species and ecosystems to a variety of physiologically stressful conditions, and experimentally assessing the effects of these stressors on marine organisms is crucial to developing a predictive understanding of how climate change will impact marine ecosystems. However, most such experiments do not fully take into account the temporal pattern of exposure to stressors, and/or the effects of multiple-stressor interactions, potentially because the cost and complexity of experimental control systems can limit capacity for incorporating such realism into experiments. As part of my PhD research, I designed, built, and programmed a low-cost, open-source experimental control system for conducting variable-exposure, multiple-stressor climate change experiments. This system is built upon the open-source Arduino electronics prototyping platform, which is highly customizable, supported by a large online user community and a wide range of software libraries, and is accessible for use by students and researchers without an electronics engineering background. It has been successfully used at the Hopkins Marine Station to investigate multiple-stressor effects of upwelling-driven acidification and hypoxia, and of fluctuating patterns of hypoxia exposure on kelp forest organisms. The low cost and high customizability of this Arduino-based control system can contribute to expanding capacities for running climate change experiments for researchers and students worldwide.

 

Bio: Natalie is an ecologist who is broadly interested in understanding the impacts of global change on marine ecosystems. As a PhD student at Hopkins Marine Station, she focuses on understanding the physiological and ecological impacts of upwelling-driven hypoxia on sea urchins in California Current kelp forests. Part of this work involved creating new capacity for mutliple-stressor climate change experiments at Hopkins Marine Station, using open-source electronics platforms. Therefore, she is also generally interested in exploring how open-source electronics can enhance our ability to do better science.

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The Local Naturalist (Science Illustration)

Andrea Dingeldein

 

Abstract: Andrea will be displaying her work and available to discuss her experiences with scientific illustration as a hobby and profession.

 

Bio: As a science illustrator, Andrea strives to communicate science topics in a clear and engaging manner in order to make science more accessible to the public.  Most of her freelance work is created for researchers, marine laboratories, engineering companies, parks, and local environmental organizations that fight to protect the ecosystems she knows and loves. In addition to working as a freelance artist, Andrea is an instructor for the Science Illustration Program at CSUMB. She teaches field sketching and support digital illustration classes.

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