Dr. Heather Coleman coordinates
NOAA's Deep-Sea Coral Research and Technology Program.
In this role, she enjoys working with researchers
and managers around the country to enhance our understanding
of deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems
as well as protect these important resources.
Before joining NOAA,
Heather worked at the National Academy of Sciences
synthesizing best practices for monitoring restoration
in the Gulf of Mexico.
She also worked at the Pacific Marine Analysis
and Research Association
leading a capacity-building program on tools
to facilitate marine spatial planning.
At the University of California Santa Barbara,
she did her research on ecological effects
of natural oil seeps on marine invertebrates.
She has studied the history, politics, social dynamics,
ecological effects,
costs and benefits of restoring a prominent estuary
over decades in the center of Istanbul.
Heather has also researched shallow coral reef communities,
dynamics, ecological effects of marine debris,
ocean biogeochemical cycling and invasive plant ecology.
She has led volunteer programs
to restore and monitor kelp forests
and clean the beaches of her home city, Los Angeles.
Dr. Coleman is not someone
who lets grass grow under her feet, clearly.
I'd like to also introduce Eva Barnett.
She's the outreach manager for Green Fire Productions,
an NGO producing documentaries on sustainability
and conservation of natural resources.
In Green Fire's award-winning Ocean Frontiers film series,
Eva shares inspiring stories of unlikely allies collaborating
for the health of our oceans and ocean economies.
Through organizing public screenings
with a growing network of over 1,000 partners worldwide,
Eva gets the films into the hands of decision-makers,
institutions, and community leaders
as well as environmental film festivals.
She leads the effort to distribute the films
that Green Fire makes to schools and libraries across the country
and is a co-developer and project manager
for "Exploring Ocean Frontiers," educator resources.
She's been instrumental in developing dynamic
and engaging materials
that bring the film series into the classroom around the world.
What drives her work is a desire
to motivate the next generation of ocean leaders.
Last, but certainly not least,
I wish to introduce curriculum developers,
Jennifer Buffett and Sarah Lockman.
They have both worked in formal and informal education settings,
including elementary, secondary, and post-secondary classrooms
as well as non-profit organizations
in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada.
They specialize in innovative approaches
to hands-on inquiry and place-based learning.
They work with students, teachers,
and organizations to develop relevant,
engaging learning resources and environments.
With that, I have said quite enough.
Dr. Coleman, Eva, Jennifer, and Sarah, the floor is yours.
Great. Thank you, Bruce. Do I sound okay?
Yes.
Excellent. Thank you everybody for listening.
I love to talk about deep-sea corals.
So, I appreciate the chance
to give a little bit of deep knowledge going today.
So, I'll provide an introduction to deep-sea corals and sponges
and a little bit about our work at NOAA.
Then, our following speakers will talk about classroom
lessons and activities that draw upon these ideas.
Before I say anything else,
I really want to thank Green Fire and especially Eva
for working with us to develop the deep-sea coral curriculum
that she's going to share today.
I just can't say enough good things about it.
It's a really fabulous resource.
I'm so excited that we got the chance to work with them
and to develop this project that hopefully everybody can use.
So, NOAA's Deep-Sea Coral Research and Technology Program
has only been around for ten years,
but it supports research around the country.
Many of our priorities come from the research –
sorry, the resource management community;
some fishery management councils, some sanctuaries,
from regional resource managers and also as well as researchers,
NGOs, industry groups, tribes,
and a number of different entities.
We have really strong partnerships around NOAA
and other government agencies as well as academia, among others.
So, I can't start any other way then just to show you
a little bit about these fabulous creatures
that most people don't know about.
First, I'd like to thank ocean exploration research,
which is a part of NOAA that we collaborate with quite a lot,
and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
for most of the pictures that you'll see here today.
Most of these animals on the screen right now are corals,
but I'll tell you which ones are sponges,
if you're not sure, in a little bit.
So, corals are colonial animals, as I think most people know.
They're found in a huge range of ocean conditions.
Everybody knows about shallow corals,
but the thing about deep corals
is they don't depend on warm water or sunlight.
They don't have photosynthetic symbiotic friends
living in their tissues.
So, therefore, they're not limited to these shallow,
sunlit waters.
They're distributed throughout much of the world's deep oceans.
We've found them all over the planet
and I'll show you a picture of that later.
Sponges, some of them look just like shallow water sponges
that you've probably seen plenty of photos of,
since they filter feed just like these deep corals do.
But others – I'll show you – I think you can see my mouse.
This is a sponge right here. It's the Ping-Pong Tree Sponge.
It's kind of crazy looking.
This is the Harp Sponge. These two center-left photos.
Those are called carnivorous sponges
because they actually have barb-like hooks
that capture prey. Most sponges don't do that.
So, these ones are a little weird.
One of the main things about deep-sea corals and sponges
is that we're finding new things about them all the time
and a lot of them are pretty weird and we love that.
So, our program and a number of partners' study
these deep-water corals and sponges.
Looking at these photos,
you can see they really come in many shapes, sizes, colors.
They also provide habitat for many types of organisms.
So, I'll show you that a little bit more on the next slide.
Just a few fun facts for you.
I'm sure everybody knows that deep-sea
is one of the least explored environments on earth
and really relatively little is known about it.
But, I wonder if you knew that over half of all known
coral species are found in deep, dark waters.
So, we've described over 3,000 species of deep corals already.
They come in soft corals and stony corals.
You can see a little bit of that on the slide before.
It's important to note they grow very, very slowly.
Varies depending on the type of coral.
But often, it's a whole order of magnitude
more slowly than shallow corals.
So, I think this is a perfect time
for our first poll question, Bruce.
Did it come up on – on, there you go.
Poll open. Do I have to stop my screen?
Sorry. Sorry, Heather.
No, you don't have to do anything.
Everyone, if you will click on your screen for the answer
which you determine to be best.
We will automatically be collecting the answers to these
and we'll let you know.
So, we're just going to take about a minute
to collect these responses.
About how big is the largest deep-sea sponge?
Is it as big as a school bus, a minivan, a VW Bug,
or a bicycle? So, we're just –
This is the – sorry – the largest known
discovered deep-sea coral – sorry - deep-sea sponge.
We can't – we don't know what's out there.
There could be even bigger ones.
Right. So, please take a moment to do this.
Just a quick note that for those of you
who may be using an Apple tablet or looking at
– or watching this on perhaps a mobile phone,
you may not have the ability to answer this poll.
There are sometimes some quirks with the software,
but everybody else should be able to.
We've got about 82 percent of the folks having voted.
Everybody just take another few moments to put your answers in.
Then, we're going to close up the poll.
Okay, let's see what people said.
Can you see this Heather?
No.
Okay, it looks like 29 percent said
that it was as big as a school bus,
31 percent said it was as big as a minivan,
31 percent said it was as big as a VW Bug,
but only 10 percent said it was as big as a bicycle. So…
Okay, well, definitely on the right track.
It is minivan was the answer.
You are looking at the biggest known sponge to date.
It was about the same size
as the remote operated vehicle that found it.
Wow.
I'll share with you a great video later
on that captures the essence of the discovery
when the researchers found this thing.
Believe it or not, that was a Jeopardy question.
The contestant got it right. So, that's why I always ask it.
Cool.
Yeah. So, then back in the coral world,
this is the largest known soft coral.
It's over 18-feet tall. It just blows my mind.
On the other side of the coral world,
reef-developing corals made of many colonies
can be miles long and over 100-feet high.
So, these things just get enormous sizes.
The oldest marine creature in the world
is believed to be 4,265 years old.
It's a Black Coral like this image right here
on the bottom center.
It's called Black Coral because of its skeleton.
You can see right there, the black part.
When all the tissue is gone, it's completely black,
kind of ebony-looking.
That was discovered in the Pacific Islands.
This cross-section right here,
shows how we have been aging coral.
This one's about 44 years old. The last bit of trivia for you;
the deepest known coral is over 20,000 feet deep
which is deeper than the highest mountain in North America,
Mount Denali, is tall. So, I hope this convinces you
that these are seriously incredible animals.
Next, I have a little more convincing
if you weren't there yet.
Deep-sea coral can create complex 3D habitats
and you can see that in a few of these photos.
On the bottom, this is more of the reef-developing corals
that I was talking about last – sorry –
I was talking about last time.
Up here in the top left corner is the soft corals.
They provide habitat but on a much smaller scale.
So, these productive habitats also act as spawning grounds
in protection for commercially caught species like grouper,
snapper, sea bass,
rockfish, shrimp, lobsters, crabs, and many others.
They hold records on ocean climate and productivity
that can really help reconstruct past oceanographic conditions.
Some corals and especially some sponges show
anti-tumor activity.
This little green sponge, right here in the center,
has been in the news a bit in the last few years
for its anti-cancer –
theoretical anti-cancer activity.
These animals really support ecosystems on multiple scales.
The expansive reef building habitat,
like down here in the corner,
to really small colonies that still provide habitat,
like these guys.
Then, even thinking on even smaller scales,
individual sponges can contain huge numbers of symbionts
in their microbiome.
This really might be why they're valuable for medicine.
Moving on to how we actually study these things,
partnerships are incredibly important in this line of work,
given the vastness of the deep sea
and the expanse of this kind of research.
Multiple offices of NOAA as well as other agencies
and academics send ships,
as you can see here, remotely-operated vehicles
like this one and this one right here,
as well as autonomous underwater vehicles,
which I don't think I'm showing a picture of.
Towed cameras and plenty of other devices
that we have to try to study the sea.
But we don't search blindly.
Resource managers tell us where and what information is needed
to make informed decisions in their region
as they're trying to balance deep-sea coral
and sponge protection with economic activities.
So, what we start with, really, is mapping.
You can see in this large picture a NOAA ship
mapping the sea floor. It's conducted to find –
it's conducted for a lot of reasons,
but we like to do mapping to find good places
to look for coral habitat
and that's what's going on in this image here at the top.
You can see all these different colors correspond to depth.
The redder the color, the shallower the depth.
So, this purply-blue area is getting quite deep.
There's lots of interesting features, like right here,
there might be a ridge, for example.
You might find a habitat that looks sort of like this.
We have some idea of what this kind of habitat
mapping might look like in real life
but, really, you never know till you get there.
This particular image was from the South Atlantic.
Right now, we're really focused on the South Atlantic
and West Coast, doing research for management in those areas.
A recent example of a highly successful cruise
that searched for deep-sea corals
and sponges based on mapping work that NOAA
and others had done was last summer's documentation of a reef
that's estimated to be 85 miles long, a continuous coral reef.
It's likely hundreds of years old.
You may have seen a number of articles about that this summer.
If you haven't, please take a look.
It's really fascinating. South Atlantic resource managers
are currently using this information
to inform decisions on deep-sea habitat protection.
So, it's been an exciting time to be down there
with an ROV looking for coral.
So, I promised you a map and here it is.
The NOAA deep-sea coral data portal and map viewer
is available to everybody.
All this information is publicly available.
What it's showing you is all the known locations
of deep-sea corals and sponges.
There are probably tons and tons and tons more corals
that we don't know about, but here's the ones we found.
This website pairs coral and sponge records
with taxonomic information, with discovery date,
and we have data going back into the 1800s
and the Challenger Expedition, which is pretty cool to see.
Their location, their depth, what management authorities
are in their region, if photos are available.
We have photos on about ten percent of our records
and those will show up.
I also like to note that Eva has developed classroom activities
that use this information and encourage students
to explore spatial database.
So, this is – diving in a little bit deeper.
This is the Gulf of Mexico.
The colored dots are all the different kinds of corals
we have – and sponges – in our database.
But what's underlying it is a predictive habitat model.
So, for some advanced students, if they're interested in knowing
how we find deep-sea corals and sponges.
I mentioned habitat mapping is one way to do it.
This is a little more refined.
Once we know the habitat, then we can predict where corals
might be based on conditions where we've found other corals.
So, we're constantly improving these models.
What you see here with the black to kind of browning grey,
the darker the color – these black areas –
the more likely we are to find corals.
So, some of the overlaying coral dots have been made to – sorry –
have helped make this model output
and some of them we've found because of this model output.
So, I don't want to get too much in the weeds of this,
but for advanced students, it might be an interesting way
to show how we do our research.
Also, on this slide, here's what it looks like
when you have one particular data point selected
and there's a picture available.
You can actually zoom in and see what the corals look like.
So, just, again,
on the management side of things a little bit,
this is the map of the Fishery Management Councils
of the United States. There are eight council regions
and they are wildly different sizes,
as you can see here.
The Western Pacific has just about half of the exclusive
economic zone of our country, which is pretty incredible.
We have actually done a fair bit
of searching for deep-sea corals in that area.
We had a campaign over three years.
We've searched in all of the remote monuments.
The North Pacific is about 30 percent
of the exclusive economic zone.
Then, the other regions are a fair bit smaller,
but not less important, of course.
We've found deep-sea corals and sponges in all of these regions
and almost all of them have used our data
to protect areas where they're found.
So, I just want to show you quickly a little bit
about the protection
that our research has helped to put in place.
These sorry images from the Pacific Region,
from the Western Pacific Region, and the North Pacific Region
are not at all at the same scale.
So, please don't look at them like they are.
The Western Pacific Region is enormous. Alaska is enormous.
The West Coast is, too, but not the same scale.
I also want to note that there are some protections
pending on the West Coast that are not shown here yet.
I didn't forget about them,
but they're not legally finalized yet.
So, I can't quite show them yet.
But this is just to show that we actually have protected
quite a lot of deep-sea coral habitat
based on information that my program,
and others, have helped gather.
So, even though corals face a lot of challenges
– and they absolutely do –
deep corals face most of their challenges from trawling
and that's why these maps show restrictions
on seafloor trawling.
Quite a lot of habitats protected.
So, it's not all bad news.
To show you the other regions,
here we have the Mid-Atlantic Region.
New England. New England has an enormous protected area
that's almost the same dimensions as the Mid-Atlantic
coming in,
most likely, after NOAA approves it this year.
We have a few protections in the Caribbean.
We have some more research coming up this year
that may inform other protections.
The South Atlantic was a very early protector
as was the Pacific Islands and the Gulf of Mexico.
Also, there are some protections that are waiting for approval
that I can't show just yet.
So, I hope that's been helpful to see a little bit
about deep-sea corals and sponges,
the research that we've been doing,
and then that management to actually protect their habitat.
What I have next to show you is a few resources.
So, the first two bullets are live streams.
I hope that some people in the audience have watched our ROV
dives for the Okeanos Explorer or the Nautilus before.
If you haven't, it's fascinating;
alternatingly fascinating and boring
because sometimes they drop down in just areas of deep mud
and we didn't know what was there
and there's not really anything there.
But a lot of times, we do know –
have some idea what's going to be there or a really good guess
and we find fascinating communities.
And other things, too.
Shipwrecks, water column explorations.
There's lots of things that happen on these cruises.
So, check out the live stream here
and you can watch what the researchers are doing.
The other materials I have here; there's curriculum,
there's lesson plans, all kinds of fun things on these links.
I know you'll get these slides later.
The other things I have here for you are some video.
So, these first few bullets are some videos that my program
and others within NOAA have been involved in like sanctuaries.
Ocean Exploration Research has fantastic videos on their site.
I'd like to really highlight a few.
This Corals in Concert video is a lot of fun to watch
and it really does a great job at showing
how much we discovered in the Pacific Islands.
It was all new.
So, they discovered about one new species per dive.
So, a dive lasts eight hours or so.
In that time, the average, over three years,
was finding one new species every dive.
That's incredible.
They also had about 16 million views from those live feeds.
Ocean Exploration Research has many other videos that show,
really, the excitement of the scientists
as they're discovering thing.
This minivan sponge video I think does a good job of that.
I'd also like to thank Green Fire, again,
for this first video, The Gulf of Mexico Expedition.
That was research that we did for management
in the Gulf of Mexico. They were trying to decide
on how to expand their protected areas of coral
and we had a cruise that went between some of the areas
that they were thinking about and showed lots of coral
between those areas.
As a result, they really scaled it up
and protected more area than they were thinking about before
because we brought all of these images back of valuable habitat.
Then, finally, we have a few story maps
that are kind of fun for students to look through.
Oh, I forgot to note this is one of the new species
that was found in the Pacific Islands
that you may see in the Corals in Concert video.
It's named after one of our collaborators.
So, I wanted to make sure to show that.
With that, I'd like to thank everyone for your attention
and your interest in deep-sea corals.
I'm happy to answer a few questions now
or after the remaining speakers or really anytime in the future.
Well, thanks Heather. That was just remarkable.
I'm itching to – I'm sorry; pun intended –
dive in to these resources and check them out.
I am much more familiar
with the more shallow water corals, myself.
So, I'm really curious to learn more about these.
You're not alone.
There were two interesting questions that came in.
One question was that you had mentioned
that protections have been put in place for deep-sea corals.
Can you describe what kinds of protections are put in place,
very briefly, in order to maintain these unique habitats?
Somebody is reading my mind
because that's the first extra slide I had.
There are four different kinds of ways
that fishery management councils can protect corals.
There are other less direct ways, too.
But essential fish habitat is something that fishery
management councils can develop and that they need to develop
for each fishery management plan.
Essential fish habitat means
that you need a consultation process to go on
before activities can take place in particular regions.
Fishery management plans can also be developed
specifically for coral.
That does happen in a few regions,
sometimes where coral are harvested,
but a lot of times it prevents harvesting of corals.
Bycatch provisions aren't used as much.
Coral is bycaught or, as we always say,
coral comes up as bycatch in a lot of trawl fishing.
Sometimes that's evidence for protecting areas
or sometimes you trawl the same areas
and, in that way,
you get less and less coral in those particular areas
but other areas are available for coral to grow
or protected from trawling.
Discretionary authority is a new protection
that they've used in New England and Mid-Atlantic
and other areas are thinking about it.
But that's the most powerful one for deep-sea corals
because it protects them for no other reason that they exist.
So, if the council decides to use that authority,
they can protect that area
just because there are deep-sea corals there.
That's all, unless you want me –
No, no. That was great. Thank you.
That certainly provides a little deeper dive,
some more information on what that actually means
with protecting those important ecosystems.
There was just one kind of neat question I thought of that –
not that I thought of but that somebody put in which is,
"What makes the Black Coral skeleton black?"
Oh, wow. No one's ever asked me that one before.
All right.
I'm going to have to do a little bit of research in my down time.
Okay, well, I tell you what.
Why don't you do some research and in the meantime,
while you're doing that research,
I am going to now turn over the screen to Eva Barnett, our –
one of our next few presenters for this evening.
Eva, the line is yours, along with Jennifer and Sarah.
Great. Thank you so much, Bruce. Thanks Heather.
I wanted to acknowledge Heather, specifically,
because she was so kind enough
to review any of our curriculum materials
that had to do with the corals
and she definitely helped strengthen them.
So, thank you, Heather.
So, as Bruce said, my name is Eva Barnett
and I'm one of the project developers
of the Exploring Ocean Frontiers Educator Resources.
I'm glad to be here to talk with you
about this exceptional suite of resources
on ocean stewardship that we developed to accompany
our award-winning Ocean Frontiers film series
and, hopefully,
to inspire the next generation of ocean leaders.
These resources were developed as part of my work
as outreach manager for Green Fire Productions.
We're a non-profit organization
that's been producing documentaries
on resource conservation for almost 30 years now.
Ocean Frontiers is a four-part film series
exploring how unlikely allies – government,
industry, science, and conservation –
are working together to find solutions
that benefit both ocean ecosystems and economies
With me here, today, are two of our curriculum developers,
Jennifer Buffett and Sarah Lockman,
who created many of the lessons in these resources.
We're going to showcase three of the lessons to give you
a taste of what's available.
I'll start us off with a quick overview of the resources
and then dive into our marine biodiversity
and deep-sea corals lessons, which of course ties in nicely
with what Heather's been talking about.
Then, Sarah and Jen are going to walk you through two more,
a collaborative science lesson involving fish survey data
around the first off-shore wind farm in the U.S.,
plus a lesson on moving the shipping lanes heading into
Boston Harbor to protect whales from ship strikes.
Let's see here.
So, here you can see a little bit about the resources.
They're a collection of inquiry based secondary
and post-secondary materials
that build on real-world science and data;
providing a framework for teachers
to teach key elements of ocean
planning and stewardship, collaborative science,
marine biodiversity, ocean data portals, and more.
Using clips from the films as a foundation,
the lessons build on themes explored in the series
and offer students an opportunity
to hear directly from the people involved in ocean planning.
The underlying theme of the entire series is collaboration,
people working together,
listening to each other's points of view,
and working in common to find solutions
to the pressing problems that our oceans face.
These materials offer a positive perspective
rather than all the usual doom and gloom
that one finds in ocean conservation.
We're hoping to provide students with enthusiasm
to become involved in ocean stewardship themselves.
The activities in the secondary lessons
can easily be customized to suit
the needs of your environment or learners
and can be used by formal and informal educators alike.
Though the lessons are science-based,
there are definitely arts elements
in several of them. So, we like to consider them
STEAM resources rather than STEM resources.
There are also post-secondary discussion
guides that facilitate classroom conversations
on collaborative ocean planning and the future of our oceans.
You can assign watching the film to the students as homework
and then do the discussion in the classroom.
These college-level guides can also be adapted
for advanced high school classes.
The good news is all these materials are available
for download at no cost on the Ocean Frontiers website.
The URL is down there at the bottom of the slide,
ocean-frontiers.org
and then you can find your way easily from there.
The films and film clips are all linked within the resources
so you don't need DVDs. Many of the clips are short,
so there's lots of classroom time left to do the activities.
The secondary lessons are connected to the next generation
science standards and ocean literacy principles.
Each lesson set has a table like this showing
which standards are connected to the lessons.
Bruce, it's time for the next poll question.
So, if you could pull that up, please.
Okay.
Great, I'll let you –
So, the first question is,
"What environment do you mainly teach in?
Is it at the elementary level and informal setting,
the elementary level formal classroom,
middle or high school level informal,
middle or high school level formal classroom,
or at the university or college level?"
By the way, if these do not pertain to you,
please feel free to enter your role in education
into the question box.
I'm sure we'd love to communicate some of that
to our presenters.
It's good for them to know who's listening in
so that they can sort of direct the focus a little bit.
Eva, did you want to add anything else?
Yeah, just that it's kind of what you just said.
It's definitely helpful for us to know what grade levels
and settings that you teach in.
That'll help us guide the rest of our presentation
a little bit. So, it's really appreciated
if you take a second here to fill out the poll.
Great. So, we've only got about 62 percent
who have voted so far.
So, please, just let us know where you work in
and we'll communicate this.
Okay, so, it looks like we have got 14 percent
who reported that they're at the elementary level informal,
10 percent elementary formal,
24 percent middle or high school informal,
38 percent middle or high school formal,
and 14 percent at university or college.
Great. Thank you. That's super helpful.
So, it looks like more than half are teaching at the middle
or high school level and a little on either side.
So, that's great.
The resources that we're looking at this evening
are definitely focused on middle and high school students.
So, that's great. We're in alignment.
All right, so let's go on here.
I'm going to dive into one of these lessons.
This is from the film Ocean Frontiers III:
Leaders in Ocean Stewardship & the New Blue Economy.
This film features a segment on deep-sea corals.
So, we thought it would be a great segue.
This lesson was developed by Rebecca Clark Uchenna,
an educator from Maine
with substantial input from myself
and Green Fire's executive director,
Karen Anspacher-Meyer,
and of course, review from Heather.
So, here is just a quick peek
at what each of the lessons look like.
There are essential questions and objectives
to establish the framework of the lesson,
a list of materials and resources
down there in that left,
shows what you need for the lesson.
There's a list of everything that you need.
The overview explains the topic in a nutshell.
Plus, then there are, of course,
detailed instructions for each of the activities.
After the activities, you'll find extensions,
background information,
and links to additional resources.
Then, at the end of each lesson are the worksheets, data sets,
and any other supplemental materials.
In this case, here on the right,
we have a table of all the data layers for the coral maps.
Some of the lessons have student handouts
that the students can write on.
Some include teacher copies with answers
to the more technical questions.
Here's a quote from Martha Nizinski.
She is a zoologist and chief scientist
of NOAA's Northeast Deep-Sea Coral Regional Initiative,
who we interviewed for the film.
So, I just wanted to share a few of her words
with you along with another picture of corals,
just in case you were missing the corals [laughs].
This image is taken from the ROV
on the NOAA Okeanos Explorer mission to Hydrographer Canyon,
which is off the coast of Rhode Island.
There's the Pink Bubblegum Coral,
golden-colored Sea Fans and several others.
Then, this is the control room on the ship
where the data and images from the ROV
are being monitored and recorded.
Here is just one of my favorite corals
that I thought I'd share as well.
After the students watch the film clip,
the lesson will continue with a few prompting questions
about deep-sea corals
and what marine biodiversity means.
That's to get the students
talking about what they've seen in the clip.
Once the students have started thinking
more deeply about the topic,
we begin a mapping exercise showing corals,
other marine life, and human uses of the ocean.
So, this map that you see here
is from the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal.
This is a free data and mapping resource
that's available to everyone. We're exploring, right now,
the area around Hudson Canyon off New York City
to see what's going on in the deep-sea zone.
The canyon there is visible near the center of the map,
right here. Hopefully you all can see that.
So, now I've added some layers here.
These are some basic coral data layers.
So, we're showing the observed deep-sea corals.
These are the dots and triangles everywhere.
Deep-sea coral protection area that's with the cross-hatching,
and an outline of the deep-sea canyons,
that's this stuff here, just makes it a little easier
to see where the canyons are on the map.
So, this gives students kind of an initial glimpse
into where the corals have been observed.
Again, we encourage teachers to stress
that there are likely many more corals
than what the map shows since much more exploration
is necessary to accurately portray their distribution
and abundance in the area.
Now, we've added in some additional marine
biodiversity data
layered on top of the coral data we saw in the previous slide.
So, here we're seeing data for all cetaceans
plus key migratory fish species.
Both of these have their highest abundance
right on top of the canyons
and the continental shelf, along here.
The whales in yellowish-green and the fish in dark green.
When you're working with the actual live data
portal files in the classroom,
provided you have Internet access,
you'll be able to click the layers on and off
and it makes it much easier to see which layer is which.
So, at this point in the lesson,
it's a great time to begin asking students
for their observations of the map.
What do you notice? What questions do you have?
Make sure they understand what they're seeing.
Now, we've clicked on the legend tab,
which is over here on the left.
That switches you to see the active layers –
see the legends
that are associated with the active layers.
So, here, you can see the colors and shapes used
for the different types of coral,
the colors used for the abundance of cetaceans
and the highly migratory fish species and so on.
So, that's a really helpful piece of the puzzle here.
Then, for the highly migratory fish species data layer,
a cool thing that you can do is click anywhere on the map
and get a list of species found in that particular area.
So, I clicked where that red marker is – right here,
right at the head of Hudson Canyon –
and we see from the list that 23 species have been spotted
there including albacore tuna, basking sharks and blue marlin.
When you're actually using the map,
you can scroll down the list to find more species.
Now, we've added more layers to the map
and are showing sea turtle data and pelagic birds or sea birds
on top of all of the previous layers mentioned.
So, the sea turtles are at a higher abundance
in the darker green squares up in here.
The pelagic bird data is harder to see, actually,
under all the other layers,
which is why it's good to use the online version of this map
so you can be clicking the layers on and off.
But they are, of course,
found more frequently the farther offshore you get,
since these are all species of sea birds
that live mostly over the open ocean.
So, with just these few layers showing,
we can begin to get a picture of how busy the ocean really is.
At this point, you might ask students,
"What are the interactions you see in the maps?
Are there overlaps between data sets in a particular area?
What stands out to you?"
Now, we're moving on to show some human uses of the ocean.
Things are getting really busy here.
We can begin to ask students, now, questions
about how the human uses might intersect
with the corals and other wildlife.
In order to make this easier to see,
I've removed the marine life data,
for the moment, except for the corals.
So, included on this map is the squid fishery.
That's one of the most economically important
commercial fisheries in this area.
Keep in mind, this layer shows
only where the squid are harvested,
not their distribution and abundance.
The most squid fishing takes place in the yellow,
orange, and dark red areas
with a concentration here at the head of Hudson Canyon.
Those the squid are mostly fished
in the middle of the water column,
at times, the fishing gear does still touch the bottom
and can certainly impact the corals.
There's also pots and trap data here.
Look for the dark green
and yellow kind of circular splotches.
There's some up here, some over here.
This shows where lobstering takes place.
This is another of the major commercial fisheries here.
Since this fishery is not subject
to canyon protections
by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council,
corals could easily be harmed by the lobster pots.
Also, ocean warming is leading lobster populations
out into deeper, colder water pushing lobstering activities
closer to coral communities.
Oh, sorry, getting ahead of myself.
Also included on this map is data for unexploded ordinance,
usually military stuff, party and charter boat trips
and submarine cables.
That's just a selection of the human uses
that I put on the map.
There's many more that we could add.
So, finally, here's the map showing all of the coral
and marine life
and human use data that we've been talking about.
Certainly, a busy ocean.
By making all of these layers visible,
students can see how many uses or interests
are in play in one small ocean area
and why we need tools like ocean planning and the data portals
to help plan human activities in the ocean.
At this point, it's appropriate to ask students
some bigger picture questions like,
"How can ocean planners use these types of data
to help with ocean management?
How could this information help with ocean conservation
leading to healthy oceans? Are the maps complete?
What data do you think might be missing?
How would you go about finding this data?"
After this mapping exercise,
the lesson goes on to explore human uses
and their compatibility with corals in more depth.
But we'll stop here and hopefully leave you trace
about what comes next in the lesson.
So, before I hand things over to Jennifer and Sarah
for the next two lessons, I will take a few questions.
I also wanted to mention that a lot of times students,
after watching the film clips and doing some of this work,
they can get really fired up about some of these issues
and get excited about wanting to do something
to help protect our oceans.
So, we did also include a couple of lessons
that had student advocacy elements
like writing to government leaders
and creating public service announcements,
that kind of thing.
So, if anybody has any questions,
I'm happy to take those now.
Then we'll carry on with Jennifer and Sarah.
Thanks Eva. You know what?
I want to just ask one question that has come in.
The gentleman mentions that he's part of a group
wanting to teach students around Puerto Rico
at all levels about deep-sea corals,
coastal habitat restoration, conservation fisheries.
He's wondering if you might be able to recommend
a few other available resources
that would be useful for this process.
I'm sure you could recommend a ton,
but maybe you have like your top three.
So, resources specific for Puerto Rico or –
Well, he's looking to teach students around Puerto Rico
about deep-sea corals and coastal habitat restoration.
I guess, definitely, I would look back
to a lot of those links that
Heather had. We also, in our lesson,
have links to additional resources,
many of them through NOAA
that provide other teaching opportunities.
So, those are all linked in our lesson plans and probably,
also, taking a look at the links that Heather had.
I think she's going to pull those up again later, as well.
Terrific. So, check out the archive of the video.
Check out the slides, and a lot more to come.
Check out the resources. Very good. One last question is,
"Did you create a layer for plastics in species?"
Plastics.
No, I did not create a layer for that.
I know that they're working on, I believe,
on trying to get a better handle
on where the plastics are in this region.
But as far as I know, I don't believe there's a plastics layer
yet on the Mid-Atlantic Ocean data portal.
But I'm not 100 percent because I haven't looked that closely
at it recently to see if they had added it already.
Okay, well, we'll keep an eye out for it.
But in the meantime,
why don't we continue with the presentation.
Great. Hi, everybody. I'm Jennifer.
Sarah is here with me as well.
So, as it was mentioned, we are education consultants
and are excited to be here to present.
We had the opportunity to work with Green Fire Productions
on designing curriculum around the Ocean Frontier Series
as well as the Great Bare Sea film, too,
which is available on their website.
Sarah and I are both trained teachers.
Myself, elementary and middle school based.
Sarah, high school. But in addition to that,
we have both worked in education – as educational consultants
on a variety of different projects
for both formal and informal settings.
So, we're going to walk you through two more lessons.
We're going to start here for Ocean Frontiers II:
A New England Story for Sustaining the Sea.
As Eva mentioned, the lessons are designed for grades 7 to 12.
But having said that, they are easily adaptable
for any grade level that you teach
or, for that matter, if you're not in the classroom,
certainly for informal settings as well.
So, the lesson on collaborative research
specifically focuses on the Block Island Wind Farm.
It's unique in that we were provided with real-life data
from scientists to use within this lesson.
We'll talk more about that in a bit. Next.
So, there's a quote there for you to read.
So, "Most of the people in the industry
feel that it's necessary to see how these proposed wind farms
are going to affect the resources.
The best way to do that is to come out here on a regular basis
and get samples of what's actually here.
I fish in the area quite often.
So, I know what should be here when we come.
I have an idea of what we should catch."
So, this is a quote from somebody working in the area
who was very involved with this as well.
So, specifically in this particular lesson,
students are going to explore the Block Island
Wind Farm research project
and the collaboration between the fishers,
the researchers to produce sound science
and to determine any impacts to fisheries
associated with the construction and operation
of an offshore wind farm.
Using the data gathered from the project,
students are going to explore the data
and the research five species of fish
that were studied across the five years.
Students are going to share their findings
with their peers using a jigsaw strategy,
which we'll explain more later, if you're not familiar with.
Next.
So, each of our lessons have essential questions
and the essential questions, in this particular lesson,
is or are, "What is collaborative research?
How is collaborative research being used to help
inform decision makers in ocean planning?
How is scientific research helping species
living in the area of Block Island Wind Farm?"
As Eva mentioned, again, just to remind everyone,
each lesson has the materials and the resources,
the objectives, the subjects,
the time it should take and the standards as well.
I think we're going to go to our next poll question.
Okay, so we've got our next poll question launched.
"What is collaborative research?"
So, please answer your best guess.
Collaborative research is values different knowledge types
in the scientific process, combines academic
with traditional and local knowledge,
includes people working together, or all of the above?
Eva briefly touched upon this and, certainly,
we're going to chat a little bit more about this coming up.
Okay, so just take a few moments
to provide your best guess or if you know.
We'll give it just another moment.
Okay, our answers have come back.
Yea, everybody has got the correct answer,
more or along some.
Terrific. All of the above. Very good.
Yeah, everybody was right who guessed.
So, yea. So, what is collaborative research?
I'll go to the next slide.
Yeah, so we've got a picture there.
What is collaborative research?
Collaborative research is not a new concept
but it is a term that is being used more and more now.
So, really, collaborative research values
different types of knowledge in the scientific process.
It combines academic knowledge
along with traditional and local knowledge.
You can see scientists and fishers
in the fishing industry working together.
Also, first nation tribes were consulted
and their knowledge was used in the collaboration.
So, really, it's not a new term and it's people working together
to learn everything that they can.
I'll go to the next slide.
So, here we have a diagram.
This particular diagram is actually,
also, a black line master in the resource along
with some notes on it, too, for students and teachers.
So, this diagram is showing you where the Block Island Wind Farm
is located near Rhode Island.
It's showing that there are five wind turbines
that are the orange dots there
in the picture that you're looking at.
In this research project,
there are three different areas that were studied.
The wind farms were installed in the summer of 2016.
Then there were various fish trawl surveys
that were conducted at the three sites.
So, the one in green, the one in blue,
and the one in red to see if fish and invertebrates
were affected by the installation
and the operation of a wind farm.
So, fish were collected with similar habitat characteristics
before,
during, and after installation and operation of the wind farm.
Next slide.
So, what was collected?
So, they went through the – on the monthly –
there was basically a monthly baseline sampling
that was happening of the two bottom
trawls that were collected within those areas.
So, organisms were identified by species
and a selection of fish were collected
and measurements were taken.
So, for example, weight and length were taken.
The body weight and length ratio
was used to assess the fish condition.
Dietary habits were assessed by stomach content analysis
and statistical tests
were also conducted to determine whether the abundance, diet,
or conditions differed among three sites.
They also looked at water temperature,
the dissolved oxygen, and the salinity.
Next slide.
So, the species data sets.
We were very fortunate, as I mentioned earlier,
to have scientists
working with Inspire Environmental and Deepwater
Wind provide us with data sets for this lesson.
So, they provided us with monthly and summary data
sets for five fish species. They're listed on the screen.
The students will be working with the real data
that scientists collected
and used within their research project.
So, this is what makes this lesson really unique
is that it's not made up data.
It's real data that has been done.
It's meaningful.
Students, definitely, we have found,
have been very excited by the fact that it's real data.
Next slide.
So, the research questions.
The researchers provided us with specific research questions
to go along with the data that they gave us.
The lesson includes black line masters of these data
sets for the students to use with the data.
The lesson is presented
with the students using a jigsaw strategy,
so students are working in groups,
to become an expert on one of the five species.
Then, they start sharing their knowledge with the other groups.
So, you remix them up and start sharing their knowledge
so that everyone has a chance to be an expert.
Then, at the end, everybody's understanding
everything about each of the five fish species
that are presented in the lesson.
Also, additional research questions can be brainstormed
by having the students look at the data.
In fact, we would probably suggest that
before passing out any of the data,
getting the students to look at it
and see what trends they actually notice,
what questions that they have when they are looking at it.
Then, it makes it a little bit more interesting
and to see where they're going without any hints
when you actually provide some of the data sets.
Next slide.
So, we're going to show you over the next few slides
just some examples of what's in there.
These are just screenshots. So, it's not even showing –
it can't so everything, just a small sample of it.
So, as I mentioned before,
there are five different species of fish that are in this.
So, we have here a black sea bass data for the monthly.
There's four pages for each species
that students will work with; two pages for the monthly data
and then there's two additional pages.
So, students are able to examine the trends that they can see.
You'll notice in different parts that there's zero located.
Some of them are migratory.
Some of them are year-long residents.
So, the data really varies depending on that. Next slide.
So, the summary data sets include a series of charts
to provide overview of the data.
The charts include average length, abundance by month,
mean abundance by month across all five years of the project,
and the abundance for year one through five.
It also is important to note that at one of the sites
there was no data
that was collected in November of 2014.
That was due to a net getting hung up on a NOAA structure.
So, they didn't have anything from that.
That's part of collecting science.
Sometimes there are things that happen in an experiment
that don't go the way you want,
or sometimes it just – you don't know the answer.
Next slide.
So, the monthly temperature data was also collected
at the site with the – at the wind farm.
Both, for the bottom measurements, and it contains –
we've got a chart here over the five years
so you can see the sets. Next slide.
The abundance that is shown in the annual catch summary
showing the total abundance for each other five species
during the project years.
This slide and the next slide here that we're on right now,
which is perfect, is great to show your students sort of
after they've all become experts.
So, this graph here allows the students to start
to see the species over the years
and gives them sort of that summary picture.
So, graphs for each species is also included.
As I mentioned, we suggest doing it maybe as a reflection piece.
Next slide.
One other thing to note before we turn it over to Sarah
is that each of the lessons have extension activities
that could be used if time permits.
There's a couple examples of extension activities
for this particular lesson.
Certainly, as you go inquiry-based,
students' own interests will pop up with different things
and you might create your own extensions
that we haven't listed.
Now we're going to turn it over to Sarah.
Sarah, I think you're muted.
There we go. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me here today.
So, the next lesson we'll walk you through
is from the first film in the Ocean Frontier Series,
The Dawn of a New Era in Ocean Stewardship.
It is one of four lessons on the Ocean Frontiers I lesson set.
Again, you're at grades 7 to 12,
but really quite accessible to others as well.
So, this lesson focuses on the area
of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary
and specifically looks at the shipping lanes in Boston Harbor
and the impact that ships were having on whale populations.
Through the lessons,
the students explore the Geographic Information System,
the GIS approach,
that was used to study whale populations at Stellwagen Bank
to get a better understanding of how shipping lanes
were impacting marine life.
This GIS approach eventually provided
the research and rationale
for changing the location of the shipping lanes
to lessen the impact on marine life. Next.
So, just a little bit of background about Stellwagen.
You're seeing a map of it there on your screen.
The marine sanctuary contains an underwater plateau
located at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay.
It is an 842-square mile marine protected area
that stretches from three miles southeast of Cape Ann
to three miles north of Cape Cod
and is about 25 miles east of Boston.
This area is abundant in marine mammal activity
and 17 different species have been seen in the sanctuary
at some point in time.
Some regular visitors to the area are humpback whales,
thin whales, minke whales, and northern right whales.
So, a really important area of the ocean. Next.
At the same time, this area in Stellwagen is home to –
well, at the same time that it's home to many species,
it's also open to all forms of vessels
with some restrictions and regulations.
That includes both commercial and recreational fishing.
So, the shipping lanes to Boston Harbor
pass through Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
Over time, researchers and users of the area
noticed increased vessel traffic had led to more noise pollution
and ship strikes on whales.
So, moving the shipping lanes to a new location
within the sanctuary was an important step
in reducing whale and ship collisions.
You'll see a quote on your screen there from Dave Wiley,
who's one of the researchers in the area
just stating how important it was
that we look at this research in a total way.
So, perhaps is this a good time for our last poll question.
Okay, so our final poll question for the evening.
"To help inform ocean planning, GIS brings together:
technology, data, people and processes, or all of the above?"
We'll leave this open for just a moment,
because we actually are coming close to our 9:00 PM time.
Wow, amazing. The time has just flown by.
All right.
So, we've had a lot of people vote and the results say they –
A resounding yes. Very good.
There you go. Very good. Yes.
Well, we thought we'd give you an easy one to end the evening.
So, next slide, please.
So, this lesson plan uses this information
and was built around two essential questions
for students, the first being,
"What is GIS and how is it being used to help
inform decision-making in ocean Planning?"
Then the second, "How is scientific research
helping to protect whales from ship strikes?"
So, GIS is a system, as noted in the poll,
that brings together technology, data, people,
and processes to help plan.
People use GIS to make maps that analyze,
communicate information, and solve problems.
So, a big component of this lesson
is the interactive Stellwagen Bank GIS Map,
which is provided in the lesson plan.
It provides students with a tool
to examine multiple layers of data.
So, things like whale sightings,
baleen whale density, asymmetry, and sediment.
They examine this, but first the placement
of the old shipping lanes in Boston Harbor
to be able to predict where new shipping lanes should be placed.
Next.
So, the map you're looking at here
is the interactive Stellwagen map.
We do include instructions
on how to use this map in the lesson plan.
The map must be opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader,
which is just a free download.
So, that you can see all of the layers of the map
and they can be easily revealed one
after the other for students. What the students start out with
is simply looking at a blank GIS map
and you see here the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary
polygon which is that white line that's identified,
which you can see.
The map does take a bit of getting used to.
So, we do highly recommend playing around with it
before you're going to use it in a classroom setting.
But once you start to fiddle around with it,
you'll see how much fun it can be.
If you just look –
I'll just walk you through this a little bit
because on the left-hand side of the screen there,
you'll see that all of the layers are available to you.
Under the paperclip icon,
there is a stack of papers icon there that you see.
This opens up all of the layers for you.
Then, when you see an I in the box
next to one of the layers,
then you know that that layer is turned on.
If you click on it on the arrow between the I
and the GIS layers folder,
you'll see all the different layers
that can be turned on and off as you move throughout the lesson.
So, we provide an activity to move through,
that allows the students to see all of the different factors
that they would need to consider
when they are planning for a new shipping lane. Next.
A legend for each of the layers
is also included in the lesson plan.
So, that's the legend and layer descriptions handout.
You can provide that for students as well.
They can reference the legend as each level of the data
is revealed on the map.
Then, each layer on the map represents many points of data
that were collected about that particular layer's content.
So, on the screen you're seeing now
is a description of the survey track lines.
There's a definition for all of the different things
included in that map. Next.
So, then, as the lesson begins, students are first introduced
to the map with very little information.
Then, layers of data are added to provide students
with a bit more of a complete picture.
Here, on the screen right now, you see the old shipping lane
and the survey track lines where some of the survey points
were made visible. Next.
Then as different layers of the map are revealed,
students analyze the data as they form a prediction
for the placement to the new shipping lane.
So, here, the standardized survey sightings are revealed.
So, during July 1994 to August 1995,
and July 2001 to June 2002 a study was undertaken
by the sanctuary to quantify and map patterns of human
and wildlife use of the sanctuary.
So, this survey provided equal effort
in all parts of the sanctuary. Each month data was collected
along ten standardized ship board survey track lines
that cross the sanctuary at five-kilometer intervals
providing complete coverage of the sanctuary.
So, here you see 9,414 locations
were recorded totaling 14,850 sightings.
These are all human and wildlife uses in the area.
Next.
Then, as multiple layers are added –
here you see the baleen whale density has been added –
students discover the importance of making decisions
based on all facts.
So, using as much data as possible
and taking into account the varying factors.
At each stage along the way,
the students are asked to record their observations
as they work in pairs and groups
and handouts are provided for this as well, in the lesson.
The handout includes a particular map image
and a space for the students to record their observations.
The handout is provided as a writable PDF
but it can also be photocopied and used for students. Next.
So, here you're just seeing a small portion of the handout.
Actually, what you're seeing on your screen here
is the educator copy or a portion of the educator copy.
So, the student would have the picture on the left
and then a space on the right to write.
Then, on the educator copy here, you see just what could –
one potential observations that the students could make.
Next.
Then, it's time to make a prediction.
So, on their handout or however you choose to do it,
once they've analyzed all of the information,
students can make a prediction
on where the new shipping lane can go.
Then, finally – next slide – is the big reveal.
So, here's where the new shipping lane is depicted
by the purple lines you see there.
So, moving the new shipping lane to a new location
that was better suited to both the human uses of the sanctuary
as well as the wildlife uses of the sanctuary
was a really important step
in reducing whale and ship collisions.
Since this time, since the new location was in 2007,
it has reduced the risk of ship
strikes to endangered right whales
and other large whale species by more than 80 percent.
So, it's kind of a nice research-based story
for students
to be able to see the impacts of making informed choices.
Next slide.
Then, just like Jen had mentioned,
each of the lessons provided have some extension activities.
I mean this was just one activity
that you could do with your students with this GIS map,
but there are so many others
that I'm sure you could think of.
Whale Alert is an extension that we mention there
and another really neat tool.
They can look at Whale Alert by downloading it on their tablet
or on their phone and it identifies –
it's a user-friendly tool
that identifies safe zones for marine traffic as well.
It's a real-time app as well that allows users
to report any live, dead, or distressed whale sightings
to the appropriate response agency.
So, just something really, really neat for students
to check out. Next.
That's about it for the three lessons
that we're going to go through.
There are even more additional resources that we have.
The first several had been mentioned already.
I want to make sure that everybody knows
about NOAA's Office of Exploration Deep
Sea Corals Website specifically devoted to that.
Also, NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary
has a Deep Coral Communities Curriculum
which I recommend you check out.
You can get there by just going to the
Sanctuaries.noaa.gov/education section.
You can find that over there.
Also, I want to let everybody know
that NOAA's Office of Education
has a Coral Reef Ecosystems Resource Collection.
They do mostly shallow-water corals,
but I believe there are some deep-sea coral resources
there as well.
If that wasn't enough, there are even more great resources.
NOAA's Outreach & Education Resource Collection,
Coral Reef Ecosystems is another one.
Then, of course, last year,
if you're interested in some shallow-water corals
and some of the issues that they are facing,
we did a webinar, I believe it was last year,
called "Chasing Coral Bleaching:
A Present & Growing Ecological Disaster."
That's done by Dr. Mark Eakin,
who is the director of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Program.
There's the website I have right over here.
Finally, the last thing that I want to tell everyone is
that if you have not gone and checked out NOAA's
Every Full Moon multi-media video collections –
they come out once a month on the full moon –
you definitely should.
I just wanted to highlight the Coral
Comeback multimedia collection
that came out a little while ago.
You can just go to OceanToday.noaa.gov
and you can check all of those out and many more.
They have over 300 videos that cover a range of subjects
including ecosystems and biology as well as technology.
Just have a look at those.
You'll be very impressed. [End of Audio]