- [Hannah] Hi, everyone. Thank you for attending the National Marine Sanctuaries webinar series.
I just wanted to let you know that we are about to go live.
We will have our panelists join us at promptly 6 o'clock to begin the presentation.
Thank you.
Hi, everybody. We're pleased to have you join us for the National Marine Sanctuaries webinar series.
This series is hosted by the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
and is a way to connect with educators and other interested party parties
to provide you with the educational and scientific expertise, as well as resources and training
to support an ocean and climate literacy with your audiences.
During the presentation, all of us will be in listen-only mode.
You are welcome to type in questions to the presenter into the question box,
located in your control panel, on the right of the screen.
This is the same area you can let us know about any technical issue that you might be having.
We'll be monitoring the questions and issues, as they come in, and respond to them as soon as we can.
For questions regarding Shawn's presentation,
we will wait to ask him those questions during the question and answer time,
but please feel free to send them in, whenever you have them.
We're also recording this session, and we'll share the recording with the registered participants
via the webinar archive page, following this presentation.
This is also an opportunity to connect you to America's underwater treasures.
There's our map.
Known as our National Marine Sanctuaries,
this is a network of underwater parks that encompasses more than 600,000 square miles
of marine and Great Lakes waters.
All the way from Washington State to Florida Keys,
and from Lake Huron to American Samoa.
The network includes a system of 14 National Marine Sanctuaries
and two National Marine Monuments.
The system map is new.
As of late last year, we designated our country's first National Marine Sanctuary in nearly 20 years.
If you can spot it, it's Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary,
located just about 40 miles away from Washington DC.
National Marine Sanctuaries help protect the ocean and the Great Lakes.
These are areas of national significance and are special for a wide variety of reasons,
such as ecology reasons, their conservation value, or historical, cultural,
or archaeological reasons.
National Marine Sanctuaries are mandated to conduct research
and monitoring education and outreach. And they manage all of the resource protection, as well.
We like to call our National Marine Sanctuaries living classrooms.
They're places that we can see, touch, and learn about America's underwater parks.
This distance learning webinar series is one of the ways that we try to bring sanctuarie
s to your classroom.
So, I'm Hannah MacDonald.
I'm the education specialist for the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
And I'll be facilitating today's webinar from Silver Spring, Maryland.
With me, I have Nick Zachar. Nick, if you want to introduce yourself.
- Yeah. I'm a video production specialist for sanctuaries
and I'm looking forward to supporting today's webinar.
- Awesome. So, if you need any back-end support it'll be coming from Nick or myself,
and we'll-- he'll be also running the poll questions in the question and answer period, as well.
And with us today, we are very fortunate to have Sean Russell
to present to us on Empowering Water Scientists with EarthEchoes Water Challenge.
So, for over a decade, I'll give a bio of Sean. He's a quite well known environmentalist.
For over a decade, Sean Russell has worked with a diverse group of nonprofit organizations,
corporations, and government agencies to elevate the role of youth leadership
in the fields of marine science, education, and conservation.
As EarthEchos international associate director of youth engagement and partnerships,
Sean leads efforts to meaningfully engage youth leaders across EarthEchoes work,
while fostering partnerships to grow the reach and impact of Earth echos programs.
Designed to inspire young people to act now for a sustainable future.
Sean has previously managed the EarthEcho water challenge, which we'll talk about, today.
A global citizen science program that is engaged over 1.6 million participants from over 146 countries.
In this role, Shaun led initiatives to increase participation all over the world,
develop diverse education program partnerships
and equip young people with the tools to translate their water quality data into meaningful action
to protect their local watersheds.
Additionally, on top of all of that work he does for EarthEcho,
Shaun is the founder of and the director of the Youth Ocean Conservation Summit.
Through this program, he works to empower young people
with the knowledge, tools, and funds
to launch solutions-oriented solution oriented ocean conservation projects
in communities across the country.
Sean serves as the National Marine Educators Association Board of Directors
and is an advisor to the Ocean Project.
He's also the co-creator of See Youth Rise Up.
I would highly recommend following him on Instagram, which is on the slide, that's on the screen,
as he promotes all of his work on this platform, as well.
So, give him a follow.
And with that I'm going to change over the presenter, to Sean, to get us started.
Perfect, thanks so much Hannah we will get just a second here to pull up our slides
and we will dive right into things. - Awesome.
- And I'm gonna go dark and leave it to Sean.
baby
- All right can you guys see everything on your end?
- [Hannah] Yes, you're good.
- Maybe... hold on.
- [Hannah] We do see a video and not a PowerPoint, right now.
- Just one second.
How about now. Any better?
- [Hannah] Yep, that's great.
- Excellent, thank you all so much and thanks Hanna for that kind introduction.
It is such a pleasure and an honor to be here with you as someone who just personally has grown up
appreciating, enjoying, and exploring our National Marine Sanctuaries
and now to have the opportunity to work on programs with young people around the world
that connect them to the marine and aquatic environments in a really meaningful way.
And it's such a pleasure to have all of you tuning in, today. We really appreciate your interest
in this work, in marine sanctuaries, and of course in the topic that we'll dive into today,
which is how you can use the EarthEcho Water Challenge
as a platform to inspire and empower young people to connect to the marine sanctuaries
that are aquatic and marine ecosystems
and give back to their communities by taking action to improve the health of their local watersheds.
Over the next minutes, I'm just excited to dive in deeper and share a bit of background
on our work and programs at EarthEcho International
and provide you with an overview of the EarthEcho Water Challenge program.
We'll then dive into some water quality monitoring resources and tools
that you can use that help engage your students and collecting meaningful science
and water quality data, on the health of their local watersheds.
We'll also walk to the process of sharing water quality data through the EarthEcho Water Challenge platform.
So, you can be part of this global citizen science effort
and highlight stories of student action who are taking that next level step to protect and restore
the health of their watersheds and their communities,
as well as additional resources from EarthEcho international that can help empower students
to take an active role in protecting aquatic and environmental health and their region.
Well, first, as we dive in, here, I want to see just a little bit about who's tuning in.
Would love to know who's joining us for today's session. Thanks,I think we've got
our first poll question coming up to learn just a little bit about all of you
and the programs you work on.
- [Sean] Awesome. So we've got our first poll. Select one of the following:
K through 12 classroom educator, informal educator, University professor, researcher, or other.
And we're gonna-- we've got 85 to 88 percent.
We've almost got a hundred.
And we're gonna close the poll.
The poll is closed.
- You see the reults, Sean?
- I do not but if you want to tell me a couple.
- [Sean] I would. Yeah, we've got 34 percent are K through 12 classroom educators
38 percent informal educators, three percent university professors,
16 percent researcher and 16 percent other. Oh, they're right here. Here we go.
Perfect. All right, well again, great to see -- hang on... let's get us back to...
Thank you all so much for sharing that background.
It's great to see who we have tuning in here, today.
And excited to share this resource as really a tool that can help you in the classroom
and informal education programs and just in your own personal interest
and investigating and exploring your watershed, as well. So, great to see the diversity
of groups and audiences represented here. And we'll dive in again how you can use this program
as a tool to complement the work that you meet in your communities.
Just to give you a little bit of background in history at EarthEcho International.
We were founded about 15 years ago by Philippe Cousteau, who you see here with his grandfather,
ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau.
For so many, Jacques Cousteau really helped introduce a generation to the ocean for the first time
through adventure and discovery, exploration and storytelling,
connecting people through filmmaking and through scuba diving, another means
to life beneath the waves, again, often for the first time.
Now, today at EarthEcho, we're really honored to be able to carry on that legacy,
but we recognize that the challenge is even greater, today.
You know, we know a lot more about our oceans and, of course, there's still more to explore and discover,
but we really recognize the need to go beyond just that discovery
and really move people into action and conservation to improve the health
of our planet's marine ecosystems, of our watersheds, and the environment as a whole.
You know, every day were motivated by stories, like these, that we see around the world
that highlight the challenges facing our planet's waterways.
whether that be near around marine sanctuaries
or the connected water ecosystems of our planet.
And so, we see these stories and we're motivated to take action and continue to build on that legacy
of conservation, education, and exploration.
But at EarthEcho we do that with a specific mission of focused on inspiring young people
to act now for a sustainable future.
We recognize that we look at the planet, we see that, one, we live on a water planet
obviously that the ocean making up the dominating factor
and the face of the surface of the Earth
But we also recognize that they're six to seven billion people on the planet.
And nearly half of those are under the age of 25.
And so, at EarthEcho, we recognize that if we're truly serious about addressing the big picture challenges
facing our planet's marine ecosystems,
we can't just write off young people as leaders of the future.
It's imperative that we engage in a activate young people as leaders, today,
stepping up and working in partnership with all of our organizations and programs
to address these challenges, head-on.
And so, at EarthEcho International, all of our programs and resources are designed to inspire young people
to act now for a sustainable future.
And are either designed directly for and by young people, or the educators and mentors
that work with those students.
And so, excited to dive in a little bit deeper took one of those programs, today,
the EarthEcho Water Challenge, as I really hope it can serve as a resource for you and your programs
as you work to inspire that next generation of ocean scientists and stewards.
So, the EarthEcho Water Challenge is really our global citizen science program
and allows young people around the world to connect to their local waterways
through water quality monitoring.
And we like to break down the program into the three major components that you see, here, on the screen.
As tests, share, and protect.
For us, it all really starts with that first step, the tests,
and getting students and young people community members out connecting to their local waterways,
to their marine ecosystems, or the watersheds and their communities,
and collecting the data, collecting the science, about the health of their local watersheds.
With that data in hand, they're then able to share their findings through our global database
that monitor water.org.
And as Hannah mentioned, by doing so they join a community of over 1.6 million participants
from 146 countries,
who've taken action through this program over the years.
And that final piece of something that we really stress at EarthEcho, as well,
which is the protect piece. It's all about what do you do with that data.
What do you do with that information after you collect it and share it?
At EarthEcho, we really work to provide young people with the tools and resources
to support further action to help promote watershed health and their communities,
again, building on that inspiration from the data and science that they're collecting.
Now, the good things kicked off, it's all starting with that test step.
And, again, if we're gonna talk a little bit more about your programs in just a moment.
But at EarthEcho, we offer water quality monitoring test kits.
But, again, if you're interested in getting out and investigating water quality in your own community,
you may already have access to testing resources, which is great, as well.
If you're looking for testing equipment or resources, we do again offer these test kits
that look at the quality of surface waters.
So, they're really the ecological health of our rivers, lakes, streams, estuaries, around the world.
And these test kits look at four major indicators of water health.
The pH, the temperature, the turbidity, and the dissolved oxygen.
And, again, we'll touch on a little bit more of those in just a few moments.
Now, I also want to flag for all of our educators and organizations tuning in,
that if you are looking to get involved in citizen science and water quality monitoring
for the first time, we do offer a test kit donation program,
available to nonprofit organizations, youth serving organizations, or school groups.
You can check out monitorwater.org to explore those resources,
and we ask that groups to apply commit to being part of the program
and sharing their water quality data, alongside stories and updates, on their work.
Again, that's all available on our website,
if you're looking to get a hold of some water quality testing equipment to get involved in the program.
When we review those applications on a quarterly cycle.
But, again, that test step is the basis of a program, right?
It's all about getting young people out connected to our marine environment,
understanding the state of the water quality in these regions,
and doing the science. And we see pictures here from sites around the world,
from Puerto Rico to India to Mexico to right here in our own backyards,
where I'm from in South Florida.
And it's it's really, again, all about doing the science and collecting the data.
Now, if you're working on this program and interested in getting engaged,
and already have your own testing equipment or probes or resources,
you're welcome to plug right in become part of this global network of participants.
You've taken action through the program, around the world.
Now when testing for water quality, did I mention those four key parameters
that a lot of our student groups are looking at.
And they include things like testing for temperature, looking at how hot or how cold the water
is especially in a world with changing climate,
in the world we also see just basic seasonal changes, looking at the data over the long haul,
when it comes to water quality and water temperature.
We also have students looking at turbidity, looking at how clear how cloudy the water is
and how potential pollution or sediment changes in the waterways or algae blooms
are affecting and impacting the turbidity of the waterway.
We also have students looking more on some of the chemical tests, looking at the pH levels
of our water ecosystems, as well as the oxygen concentrations.
And, again, these are just some of the parameters that can be an indicator of water health
that our test kits look at.
But when participants are engaged in this program,
they can also look at other water quality parameters, as well,
depending on the habitat and the different focus areas they may have for their programs.
So, I want to pause for a moment and ask another quick question to the group.
Have you engaged in water quality monitoring before?
And we'd love to hear if people have either tried this out,
been part of a water quality monitoring program before,
or if you're not if you're interested in getting involved this moment.
- [Sean] And we've launched the poll, so please answer, if you get a chance.
Almost at 100...
and we're gonna close.
So, we've got 70% yes and 30% no.
I love to hear the experience if you back too,
obviously, a great way to get out and connect in the watershed.
So, those groups who have participated are actively participating in water quality monitoring programs.
It's fantastic to hear. We'd loved to over the next few slides.
I'll start walking you through how you can be part of this global initiative with the EarthEcho Water Challenge.
And again, for those of you who are new to water quality monitoring,
we hope this can be some of that complements and supplements what you're already doing,
either in your classroom, your informal science centers, your education programs ,
as a way to get young people and community members really engaged in and connected
to their local waterways, through a hands-on activity.
So, with that, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about
we talked, you know, again, about water quality monitoring and testing
and great to hear so many people tuning in and have experience in that space.
But I want to shift gears a little bit, and talk about that second component of the program,
which is really all about how do you share your data
and how do you log the information you're gaining
and how do you share the science that you're collecting with a much broader audience.
And so different estate in the EarthEcho water challenge, a big component,
is sharing your water quality data.
And you can head over to monitorwater.org, which is our website for the program,
to share all that data and join in this global community.
You can visit the website both on a laptop, computer, or a tablet or mobile phone, as well,
if you're out in the field and need to enter that data.
Now, when you head over to the website, the first thing that you'll see is a big global map
of all the data points collected from water challenge participants, all around the world.
Again, as we mentioned, about 1.6 million people from 146 countries.
So, there's this really exciting historical data set to dive into and investigate
and look at the various water quality parameters, collected by our participants.
Now, we'll talk about how to explore those results, in just a moment.
But for you coming into this program with your own water quality datum,
the first thing that you want to do is click that big add results option, that you see, here, on the screen.
Now, if it's your first time taking part in the water challenge,
you'll be asked to create a login and account, so you can continue to share your water quality data.
And when you're creating that username and login,
that could be something that you have, just as an individual,
or if you have a school or an organization name that you'd like to use,
that's a great way to go about it, as well.
So, you can easily kind of keep all of your programs data under one username and one to category.
Now, once you've set up your account you can log in to the EarthEcho Water Challenge database.
And what we see, here, is there's really only two major options to investigate
when it comes to sharing your water quality data.
The first option is to add a site and the second is to add results.
I mean, they're pretty straightforward but again when you come into the site first time,
you'll want to start by adding a site.
So, really saving the geographical location where you're collecting your water quality data.
So, by clicking on that option, you'll see that participants are asked to share a few details
about the site and where they collected their water sample.
Participants can add in a name and there's also a variety of other options to add in, as well,
whether that's a description, an indication of the water body type, whether it's an estuary,
a river, a bay, a spring, and that sort of thing, as well.
And then, of course, we'll have to, actually, save that location in the system,
either using the GPS coordinates or using a mapping tool that will allow you to zoom in
and select the specific site where you collected that water quality data.
Now, with that site out of the system, the next, obviously, really critical step
is to actually share your water quality results and share the science that's being collected
from your aquatic or marine ecosystems, through this platform.
So, when you click on the add results option it will help you through a series of steps
to dive a little bit deeper into sharing your water quality data,
as well as a few other data points, as well.
Some of things that you'll be asked for, when adding your results,
include, obviously, selecting the site. So, the location where you collected that data.
Indicate a date and time of monitoring, so we can start to look at seasonal changes
and changes throughout different times of data, data are collected.
Here, we ask for the number of participants
and then, of course, the actual water quality results that you collected.
And that includes the four water quality parameters that I touched on, earlier.
The temperature, the turbidity, the pH, the dissolved oxygen.
But as you explore the Water Challenge database, you'll see there are also other opportunities
depending on your focus area of your programs, that habitat or the work that you're doing.
And you can also share data, like salinity or nitrate, nitrate phosphate. That sort of thing, as well.
Now, in addition to the core water quality parameters,
there are also optional features in the Water Challenge database to make it easy to share
environmental conditions. Things, like recent rainfall precipitation of the region, the air temperature,
and even directly upload photos and add details
about other observations that were collected out when you're sampling.
As you can see, here, the picture of participants can even take out a tablet or a smartphone
directly to the watershed site and upload the data on-site
or, of course, upload it when you return back to a classroom or an education center.
Participants taking part in the program,
some of them also decide to look at the biological indicators of water health.
So, if you can also log data. If it's collected around macroinvertebrates
and the species of macroinvertebrates that are collected,
again, to indicate biological water health, as well.
Now, one additional thing that we've added to the Water Challenge database over the last few years
is the option for groups participating to document after they've taken beyond water quality monitoring.
So, it's not just about doing the science, but is that we're moving into that protection space
and thinking about how we're using the data and the observations made
to inform actions to protect local water ways.
This is a final question when sharing your results.
You can also indicate if you've taken that additional action
with your students or community members or program participants.
And we're excited to see tens of thousands of people around the world,
and now it's documenting that additional action.
whether it be taking part in habitat restoration projects along stream banks or shorelines,
sharing data with government officials or leading in-depth community education programs
about the importance of waterway health and conservation.
Now, once that data is shared at monitorwater.org,
it all becomes publicly visible on that big global map.
And, of course, within your account you can always work with students and participants
to explore that data and starting to see the trends over time.
But, you can also, again, zoom out and look at the big picture.
So, if we go back and head over to our monitorwater.org homepage,
we can dive deeper into that big global data set
by looking at different comparisons of water quality at different sites around the world,
and can select specific sites.
Excuse me.
Receive a water quality data and any changes, over time.
So, one of the great things about the program, as you think about participating
and your program design, is to consider collecting data on a regular basis.
Collecting data either weekly or monthly or throughout a given season or year,
you can really start to see how these trends really build up over time.
That's a great opportunity for students and community members to explore seasonal variations,
variations from different weather events or different environmental impacts
that could adjust or alter water quality, again, over a longer period of time.
When exploring any of these sites the database,
as you add more data, you can again see these graphs will form,
and allow you to dive deeper into that data analysis.
Now, in addition to exploring the data through the earth echo water challenge platform,
some students and educators like to explore a little bit more of the historical data sets.
And so participants, in addition to seeing that in the map view,
can also head over to monitorwater.org/tools
and explore our reports from the historical water quality data
that's been entered through the program.
Participants can download full Excel spreadsheets and work to gain skills and data analysis
and graphing, by identifying trends with their own data as well as that historical data
from the last several years of the program
Now, when it comes to sharing both the water quality data and the impact of this work,
we're also very passionate at EarthEcho about storytelling.
I think it really speaks to to our legacy, trace back to Jacques Cousteau.
And so, the original ocean storytelling and communication efforts.
And so, at EarthEcho, we really want to put the tools in the hands of our participants
and in the hands of young people,
to introduce us to their watershed, to help us tell the story of their local Marine Sanctuary,
their local watershed and how it connects to their lives
and the impact they're having through their water quality monitoring work
or their conservation work in their community.
So, we invite all students, participants, and educators tuning in to share your stories
of water way conservation with us.
To tell us about how you're working on the EarthEcho water challenge,
how your water quality monitoring data is influencing the work you're doing in the community,
and you can head over to monitor water.org /news/submitstory to share their stories.
We're always looking to highlight guest logs and really amplify the voices of young people
who are involved in this this work, around the world
and the organizations that partner with them, to make all this work possible.
We also encourage groups to join the conversation on social media
and use hashtag monitorwater to again share photos and stories about the work
to monitor water quality in your community,
to share your findings that, again, take action to protect your local marine and aquatic ecosystems.
And now, I want to kind of shift gears in and touch on that final component of the program,
which is the protection piece.
Again, at EarthEcho, we really focus on inspiring young people to take action.
And the first action and first step is all about collecting the data,
but then we really want to work to support young people,
and the educators the teachers the organizations that work with students,
to give you all the tools to convert the water quality data and citizen science experiences
into action to protect watersheds and your communities.
So, I encourage you to head over to monitorwater.org/protect.
So check out what we call the EarthEcho Water Challenge action portal.
And this is a space that we continue to grow on our website,
but that begins to tell the stories of young people who've gone through this program
and have used their water quality data to influence waterway conservation projects and their communities.
You'll ever learn more about their stories and also see the steps that they went through
to help replicate some of their work and projects, in your own community.
Now, additionally, for our educators and instructors tuning into this session,
you can also explore the water challenge website and access a variety of curriculum guides
and action toolkits that, again, help students think through those next steps
for carrying out waterway conservation projects in their own local communities.
Now, with that, I want to touch on just a few stories of those student action projects.
These are students from South Florida, from the Miami area,
who are passionate about protecting the water quality in their local marine environments,
really at the beginning of the Florida Keys reef tract.
And these students have gone out and conducted ongoing water quality monitoring efforts,
sharing their data and their work through the EarthEcho water challenge.
Inspired by their efforts, they've started to meet bake sales to raise funds for coral reef restoration projects
in South Florida.
And I've taken direct action to improve watershed health and water quality
in their marine environments, by working on mangrove restoration projects.
Replanting critically important mangrove plants along the estuary and coastal shorelines
and their communities to help stabilize shorelines, prevent erosion, and absorb nutrients
that would otherwise enter their local marine environments.
These are stated from the National Aquarium in Baltimore,
who are participating in their What Lives in the Harbor program.
When this fantastic program gets students out right to their local waterways,
in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore, to investigate water quality
and overlay that data with information they're collecting
about the types of organisms, the biodiversity of life that lives the Inner Harbor,
to help me students better understand water quality impacts on their local marine ecosystems
and the types of organisms that can be found locally in their own backyard in marine environments.
These are students who participate in programs through the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association,
another one of our EarthEcho water challenge partners,
and they're in Washington State looking at salmon health,
and how stream and water quality health impacts salmon health and ultimately the entire ecosystems
in their region.
Through this program these students have a chance to go out and
really an immersive way investigate their local watershed and their local streams
to learn more about water quality, to the left the water quality data, and share that through our platforms.
And then take part in hands-on watershed restoration projects.
Removing invasive species from stream banks and ultimately planting native plants,
to, again, help stabilize shorelines and protect this important habitat.
And finally, these are students from a youth blood organization that we partner with in North Carolina
called Love a |Sea Turtle.
And they lead ongoing water education programs for their peers and younger students
in their community, incorporating the EarthEcho water challenge.
Inspired by their learning and their investigation of water quality,
they've worked with the city of Greenville North Carolina to revitalize the city's paint the drain program,
making it entirely student driven,
working to get out in the community and paint thousands of storm drains with educational messages
about the importance of not allowing pollution to enter these storm drains,
that ultimately lead to their local watersheds.
So, again, just a few examples of stories of young people across the country
that are passionate about protecting their local marine ecosystems
and the waterways in their communities.
Now, at EarthEcho, we also invite you to join us for a variety of other programs.
You know, we really see the water challenge as a fantastic opportunity to get students
and community members connected to their local waterways, often for the first time.
And it gives a chance to become scientists, to collect that data,
to share their findings and then as they take action,
we really want to connect them to a variety of resources to help them further their passions
and their interest and protecting their local waterways.
So, at EarthEcho we have a number of other programs that I invite you to take a look at,
and to plug into to learn more about watershed health
and have additional tools and resources, for students to take that next level action
to protect their local watershed.
First, I want to spotlight highlight our EarthEcho expeditions program,
which each year takes 25 middle school teachers, along with our founder and team,
to investigate a critical watershed or waterway conservation issue around the world.
Past expeditions have investigated plastics pollution in Australia.
Ocean acidification in the Pacific Northwest or dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay.
Now, these expeditions are designed to allow teachers to investigate this issue,
but ultimately that teacher team works with with us to create educational resources,
curriculum enhancement, and design challenges as well as a series of high-quality videos
that follow the team on the expedition to bring this to life for students in the classroom
and allow them to take part in hands-on activities
to dive deeper into the different issues focused on, with these expedition programs.
If students are interested in water quality and water science
and learning more how they can get involved in ocean conservation
or any related field, as a career, they can check out the EarthEcho STEMExplore program,
which allows us to introduce students to the diversity of STEM careers available to them,
through video content and connecting them live in real time.
They're what we call virtual career connections to STEM mentors
and those are broadcasts to school groups and after-school programs across the country.
I also want to highlight our EarthEcho Youth Leadership Council,
which is really at the heart of all the work that we do.
As you work with students and young people in your communities who are passionate all this work,
I encourage you to check out the Youth Leadership Council as an opportunity for them to further
their passion and leadership in the space.
The Youth Leadership Council unites an outstanding group of, right now ,
17 high school and college age students from around the world.
So really at the heart of our organization.
They work to help guide all the programs that I just mentioned
and really give us our vision and direction,
as well as provide direct leadership to the various pieces of our work.
to of these numbers also serve on our EarthEchoo board of directors,
and they serve as representatives in the community, getting a chance to share this program,
while developing skills as young professionals in this field.
I do want to give a shout out that to Hannah, who is kicking off the webinar, today,
who is one of our inaugural EarthEcho youth leadership council members,
is obviously continued to just go on to do incredible things in this field.
And then, finally, I just wanna touch on one additional program
that can continue to be a compliment and enhancement to work on citizen science,
on water quality monitoring and waterway conservation programs.
This is a brand new program from EarthEcho, which is called the Our Echo Challenge
and just launched this spring.
The OurEcho Challenge is a nationwide biodiversity challenge for middle school students
in fifth through ninth grade and middle school students are challenged to work with their peers
and a teacher mentor or adult advisor to investigate biodiversity in their own backyards.
And, again, as they think about issues around our marine sanctuaries or ocean conservation
or watershed help, it's a great topic and starting point to plug into this additional program.
Students are challenged to think about those biodiversity issues in their own backyard
and come up with a plan to address the biodiversity challenge they see in their community.
They can then submit that application with their idea by March 22nd of this year
for a chance to be selected as a finalist.
And our finalist teams will be invited to Washington DC for a chance to compete
for up to ten thousand dollars in grant funding,
to grow their program back in their local communities and implement that solution on the ground.
So, again, I encourage you to check out earthecho.org to explore the variety of resources
that are out there that again can use the EarthEcho Water Challenge as a launch point
to explore a variety of different topics related to ocean health, biodiversity and youth leadership.
So, with that, I want to stop here. I want to first let's say thank you all so much for for tuning in,
for your interest in our work and programs.
And, now, I really want to turn this time and the space over to you to see what questions you have
about the EarthEcho Water Challenge, opportunities to get involved with your students,
or any of our other programs at EarthEcho .
- Thank you so much, Sean, for that wonderful presentation and introduction
to all things EarthEcho, especially the water challenge.
That was really great. I want to provide a little bit more information on how you can ask a question.
So, throughout the webinar and right now, you can ask questions in the question box
that's on the control panel on the right side of your screen.
You can type them in and we'll read them off to Sean.
If you're feeling brave enough and want to speak out loud, we can unmute your microphone.
And you can do that by raising your hand, over in the attendee section.
So, we can get started with one of those hand raised questions,
as Molly McBride, it seems, to have her hand raised.
So, Molly, I'm gonna go ahead and unmute you.
Molly, you are unmuted and feel free to ask your question to Sean.
Sometimes the microphones don't work.
Molly, we are not able to hear you, so if you have a question...
- Molly says she did not mean to raise your hand.
First time doing this.
Which is all okay. No worries. We have another hand raised though with a Aline.
sorry if I pronounced this incorrectly.
All right, we will unmute, yep. All right.
Well, we'll wait for more questions to trickle in, but Sean, I was wondering if
amongst your data set, do you have an idea of how many people are collecting water samples
from the National Marine Sanctuary system?
- That's a great question and I'll kind of call it two specific places where we've worked
really closely with National Marine Sanctuary groups.
We have some fantastic partners down in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
In both Mote Marine Laboratory and Elite Marine Lab in Key Largo
that run ongoing environmental education programs that involve water quality monitoring.
And so those programs have worked with students over the years to capture water quality data
from, you know, a diversity of ecosystems in the Florida Keys. Looking at, you know, the mangrove
and kind of inshore habitats, as well as offshore at some of the coral reef sites, as well.
And then we have some fantastic partners and collaborators also out in the Pacific Northwest.
Really along the Olympic Coast marine sanctuary region and in the watersheds and streams
that kind of feed into that water body, as well.
So, it's kind of neat for us to see data coming in from throughout that watershed.
Both students you know collecting along the coast,
and then students, as you saw, from the Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association
a little bit farther upstream looking at kind of the whole kind of entire watershed in one picture.
- That's awesome.
Yeah I was just going to reiterate how the knowing the water quality of downstream or upstream
water bodies is really important for the National Marine Sanctuary system, too.
Especially in the keys area with the quality of the water there.
So that's great to know that there's good partners, down there.
-Okay, I'll add to that. You know, I know I have a few tuning in, tonight,
but I also want to give a shout out to fantastic NOAA be wet grantees.
You've been part of this program over the years as well I'm so wonderful to see those sites
really across the country plugging in their water quality data.
We've been able to work with them to create different database tracking tool and resources
that are really custom for their programs, due to the long-term nature
of their water quality monitoring efforts, as well.
- That's awesome.
- So, we have another question for you, Sean.
Are the earth echo expeditions open to high school teachers?Iis there a cost?
If so, are there scholarship opportunities.
- Oh, great questions.
So, right now, the EarthEcho exhibition program is just open to middle school teachers.
That's just the nature of kind of the program structure and the funder at this point,
but we are always looking for opportunities to grow these programs
and involve new audiences.
So, I would encourage you. If you are a high school teacher, I understand it's a very cool program.
So, if we have opportunities for high school teachers in the future,
please check out our newsletters subscribe to the newsletter or Earthecho.org or follow us
on social media. It's the first place you'll see about any of those future opportunities.
And then for middle school teachers the expeditions move around to different locations each year,
again, based on the different topic of interest.
So, we've previously been in Australia looking at plastic pollution,
in England looking at fisheries, most recently.
And the teachers are generally selected from the region where the expedition is headed to.
So, stay tuned, again, for the next announcement for our 2020 expeditions
of those resources get ready to come out and those applications for teachers open up.
And there isfor participants, you know, teachers are in the region where the expedition takes place
and want to apply and be part of it, there are no costs for participating.
So, that's a it really is one of our teacher professional development programs and opportunities.
- Thanks, Sean.
We have another question coming from Serae
and it's are there specific criteria for a body of water to collect data from?
Can it be on a lake or at a local park or does it have to be a recreational lake?
That's a great question. So, there aren't too many restrictions on where you can sample water.
Really, the biggest thing is we're looking at surface water sources and I know we talked about that
a little bit. So as long as it's not you know kind of faucet water tap water drinking water,
but really looking at the ecological health of service waters. That can be lakes, ponds, estuaries, rivers,
springs, the ocean, you name it.
And then when it comes to selecting a site really the only things that I would you know encourage you
to keep in mind as, one is accessibility. You know, and any safety concerns with access about sites.
Obviously, looking for sites that are publicly accessible not on private property.
And looking at sites that are, you know, easily accessed or safe to access,
for those students the participants who are going out to be part of that program.
But, beyond that, it's really you know we encouraged groups to think about, you know,
I was kind of mentioned their watershed, the upstream/downstream connections,
in, you know, what are those logical places to sample may be. It's a couple of different points.
So, you can compare the different, you know, points on a river where rivers enters the ocean
or an estuary. So, really, it's open and there's, you know, almost 80,000 different points and bodies of water
that people have monitored, around the world. So, it's an exciting opportunity to
really, you know, dive in and do that investigation on your local watershed.
Great question.
- Awesome, so Carolyn has a question.
Are you aware of any scientists that use the data submitted in their published work?
Sure, that's a great question.
So, we work with a lot as I mentioned of our kind of our EarthEcho Water Challenge partners.
So, while the program's opens the students and participants, around the world,
we also do work really closely with a core set of nonprofit organizations, National Park sites,
you know, education centers. Things like that.
And so, that's where we see a lot of the data analysis happen. Really, at that local or regional level.
We recognize that it's great to explore the big picture data set and be part of that global effort,
but a lot of that analysis happens to be at the local level with, you know, our education partners,
nonprofit science centers, national parks ,working alongside the students.
So, they sometimes have, you know, resource managers are scientists
who work to incorporate some of that data into their own community monitoring efforts.
And then we also work as we talked about the really turned that data over to the students.
You know, we don't want to just be them collecting the data and kind of sending it on,
but we really want to involve them in that data analysis process
and let them be part of, you know, really the leadership of this, from start to finish.
They're starting with that data collection
and ending, again, with, you know, data analysis and community action.
- Great. So, we have a question coming from Molly and it's in reference to a harmful algal blooms.
and has EarthEcho had any monitoring in relation to harmful algal blooms
in their water quality monitoring data
Yeah, absolutely. We've seen you know kind of here and there different instances of harmful algae blooms.
Also interesting kind of water quality data after hurricanes. Things like that.
So, interesting kind of recent events over the years, I will ,you know, I'll give you my personal experience.
So, I'm based in South Florida. Our team is virtual, works across the country.
And we've had several student leaders that we work with, directly,
who are monitoring water quality, off and on, during some of Florida's red tide algae blooms
and collecting data there.
And, you know, one of things that we have run into also, as well, as even cases where partners
have, you know, had water quality concerns
to where students couldn't necessarily go out and test water, due to
you know, kind of stronger water quality safety concerns, as well.
So it's, you know, interesting to see some of the unfortunate water quality changes
we've seen over the years, due to, you know, sometimes there's algae blooms, things like that.
But also, one of the great things is we've had students and partners at Regions, for years,
collecting some of that baseline data.
So, they have that you know data set to build on.
You know, we have partners who collect the data sometimes for upwards of ten years.
And they can really look at those long-term trends.
And I was just a group sheet about that kind of starting point data is so helpful.
And, you know, thinking about this with students
getting out there, starting monitoring on a regular basis whether its weekly or monthly
and collecting that longitudinal data is so important when we see changes.
Whether that be pollution in the environment or algae blooms or effects from natural disasters.
Things like that. We have that data set to compare to.
And students can play a really key role being part of that process which i think is really exciting.
- Great.
Here's a question from Serae
and may be a great time to mention the World Water Day.
It's is there a time period for the data to be collected for
and what happens when the kit has been used up?
- That's a great question. All of them great questions.
So, it's Hannah's point, we do kick off the EarthEcho water challenge officially each year
on World Water Day on March 22nd.
So, if you follow us along at EarthEcho on social media, you'll see a whole lot of content coming out
from us, as we get ready for our launch events and work with our partners around the world.
The program is open to participation any day of the week.
And we have data coming in just about every day of the year.
So, while we have an official kickoff, just to put a nice spotlight on the program for World Water Day,
you're welcome to participate and enter data 365 days a year
through the EarthEcho Water Challenge platform.
and we use World Water Day kind of just as that kick off
and starting/stopping points for data for each calendar year cycle.
So, definitely, anytime you want to participate you can plug in and get involved.
We encourage groups to definitely follow along and engage as we get ready for March 22nd
and the World Water Day kick off. So it's a great time to have these conversations.
And then for the the water quality monitoring test kits,
the EarthEcho test kits, they come with enough kind of reagents to run 50 sets of pH
and 50 sets of dissolved oxygen tests.
and kind of an unlimited number of temperature and turbidity tests.
And so, there are opportunities to restock those reagents with our test kit donation program.
We've also tried to support groups you know who need those additional reagents
and the future to build on the great work they've already been doing, as well.
So, there's definitely those opportunities to continue that monitoring
over kind of longer-term period of time.
- So, Joann was curious, I know that there was a website you put for concerning careers in the field.
She said that she likes the idea of students being able to research careers
concerning ocean conservation.
What was that website? And I can type it in.
- Yeah, every can be everything can really be accessed from Earthecho.org
and when you're there, you'll see a bar at the top, and you can click on the STEM Explorer program
And that one student really dive in deeper to explore the diversity of STEM careers
through engaging video content. And it's also a great place to check out.
We also host live events where students can connect in real time.
so we call STEM Explorer mentors and professionals in the space who shared their story,
their careers and background and really give young people a chance to get their questions answered
and dive in deeper to that career path.
- And, to go off of that, sanctuaries has been featured with STEM Explorer.
Our Dr. Nancy Foster Scholars are a few of them our stem mentors, as well.
So, they've been affiliated with the live program aspect. It's a great connection if you are a scientist
that would like to connect with young people.
Sean can put you in contact with the right person to be that mentor.
- Absolutely. That's a great point.
- All right. We have another question coming from Janet.
She's asking are there any quality checks on data inputs?
- Yeah Absolutely. Again, that's where we see a lot of groups you know coordinating that data, locally.
So, on our end, due to the global nature of the program,
it's not something that on the EarthEcho side we do kind of a quality crunch rule on our side.
But for people entering that data,
they can indicate if they've gone through a quality assurance control procedure
when they're entering the data themselves.
And, again, that's where a lot of our partners or educators come in
and supporting students on that data quality side of things, as well.
So, again, the program is open and we want it to be as accessible and easy to plug into as possible
for students around the world and sometimes that first gateway into water quality science
and waterway conservation. And then we really work closely with partners and and school groups
and nonprofits, to help drive, you know, the data collection process
and their local communities and regions.
- Awesome.
- Great. It looks like we've answered all of the questions that have been typed into the chat.
If you do have a question, feel free to raise your hand, now,
or type one in and we'll try to get it answered.
Additionally, if we do not get to your questions we will email out the--
we'll e-mail Sean any questions we receive following this.
And if I share my screen I'm going to take control from you, Sean.
And so, feel free to contact sanctuary.education@NOAA. gov with any of your questions
And this webinar will also be archived on the link on this slide, as well.
So, if you are aware, as I mentioned earlier, too, we do send out a certificate of attendance
for one hour of professional development and this will come up in the follow-up email.
We will also share the recording of this webinar and any associated education materials
on the webinar archive page that's listed on the slide, that you saw, previously.
And this will be this certificate will come as a PDF copy, as well.
We also have a short evaluation that asks you questions following today's presentation.
This is the input from this survey will go directly into our program, as well as other NOAA programs.
So, if you've attended a webinar in the past it we've added a separate evaluation
that goes over all of NOAA's distance learning.
And things that you've said in the past have changed the way that we've moved forward
throughout this this series, as well as input on who you want us to bring on,
what you'd like to what resources you'd like addressed.
So, please take a few minutes following this presentation to complete that survey.
We also have a presentation coming up in March
and this presentation will go over the ocean Guardian school program.
So, that is March 26th at 3:00 p.m. Pacific 6:00 p.m. Eastern.
And in April, we will have one of our Office of National Marine Sanctuaries staff members
discussing gardens of coral for reef restoration.
So, that will be April 23rd at 3:00 p.m. Pacific 6:00 p.m. Eastern.
And so, this is a little bit more on that distance learning survey that I mentioned earlier.
That's going to be linked to the evaluation.
So, the NOAA education community recognizes that today educators and students
are using live and on-demand multimedia to connect and learn about the ocean, climate STEM topics.
Like Shawn had mentioned in his presentation,
EarthEcho is using it to connect it with STEM careers.
And we're all using it to access more training and more resources.
In developing out these materials, we're looking for your feedback
to ensure that we're meeting your needs.
So, to achieve this goal, please click the link at the end of the survey to this a little bit longer.
It's still about five minutes to collect information and on distance learning opportunities.
I want to say thank you, again, to Sean for the great presentation
about EarthEchoes Water Challenge and how to connect water scientists.
And thank you, Sean, for bringing it full circle to the National Marine Sanctuary system, as well.
That was great.
And thank you all for joining us and joining today's webinar.
This concludes today's webinar. Thank you.
- Thanks, everyone. And thanks, Hannah, again, for the opportunity. We appreciate it.
- Of course.