Spring 2019 – Education Spotlight
– JUNE 19, 2019
 Members of the RECOVER research team visit the RECOVER exhibit at the Miami Seaquarium. The exhibit provides an overview of the RECOVER consortium, video displays highlighting their research, and a visualization of mahi mahi’s rapid growth in the early stages of its life. Photo Credit: RECOVER. |
(From Spring 2019 Newsletter)
The Relationships of Effects of Cardiac Outcomes in Fish for Validation of Ecological Risk (RECOVER) consortium developed an exhibit in collaboration with the Education Department at the Miami Seaquarium, which is currently on display with the Tropical Fish Aquariums. The exhibit features information about the work RECOVER is doing to study the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on mahi mahi and redfish. It also highlights mahi mahi’s rapid development in the early stages of its life; it only takes two days for a mahi mahi to hatch and another two days after hatching for it to grow big enough to hunt on its own. The display includes QR codes to visit the RECOVER website and the RECOVER Virtual Lab, as well as an accompanying video detailing their research with both Spanish and English subtitles. Be sure to check it out if you visit the Seaquarium and tag RECOVER on social media! For more information about the exhibit, visit RECOVER’s posts on social media here, here, and here.
Members of the RECOVER consortium and the Deep Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico (DEEPEND) consortium participated in the Rock the Ocean’s Tortuga Music Festival, hosting exhibits in the Conservation Village from April 12-14 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Over 30,000 people attended this year’s event. Rock the Ocean is a non-profit organization whose mission is to “increase public awareness about the issues impacting the world’s oceans and to support scientific research, education, and ocean conservation initiatives through benefit concerts, lifestyle apparel, brand partnerships, and entertainment industry events.” They organize the Tortuga Music Festival each year in support of this mission. The associated Conservation Village features exhibits by organizations who are working on ocean-related topics, inviting festival attendees to learn about their work. A portion of the proceeds from the event goes back to the Conservation Village partners to support their continued efforts. Visit the festival website here to see a full list of this year’s Conservation Village exhibitors. For photos and more information, visit the RECOVER Twitter and Instagram posts here and here, and the DEEPEND Twitter and Instagram pages here and here.
Kendal Leftwich, Ph.D. candidate with the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center – Gulf Ecological Monitoring and Modeling (LADC-GEMM) consortium and physics teacher at Warren Easton Charter High School; Juliette Ioup, LADC-GEMM co-principal investigator; and C. Gregory Seab, Seraphia D. Leyda University Teaching Fellow and professor in the Physics Department at the University of New Orleans, co-authored an article in The Physics Teacher called Introducing Scholarly Research to High School Physics Students. The article, published in the May 2019 issue of the journal, summarizes the authors’ effort to introduce and include a group of high school physics students in the research the LADC-GEMM consortium is doing to study the impacts of oil spills on marine mammals. After learning some of the preliminary findings from the LADC-GEMM consortium, students were invited to participate in ongoing LADC-GEMM research by listening to and identifying the different types of passive acoustic marine mammal signals. The students spent two to five hours per week analyzing data, were required to record findings in a lab book, and met with the research team every two weeks to discuss the project and results. Through the experience, the students gained valuable skills collecting and interpreting scientific data, working with computer programs, and working independently as well as collaboratively on a research team. The publication is available here.
