NOAA Shows Off Its Science at SeaFest 2009

Capt. Rick Brown (Ret.)
NOAA Fisheries Service Vicky Krikelas, NOAA Fisheries Service

August 19, 2009 — More than 5,000 visitors celebrated science and the sea at the Hatfield Marine Science Center’s (HMSC) seventh annual SeaFest event in Newport, Ore., on June 27. This year’s all-day festival focused on the NOAA-supported Year of Science initiative celebrating weather and climate, as well as local marine research.

HMSC is home to seven federal, state and academic institutions — including NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) Newport Research Station. SeaFest, which grows bigger each year, provides an opportunity for NOAA and its partners to showcase local and regional science activities and products to visitors through interactive exhibits.

For SeaFest, NOAA’s NWFSC opened its Capt. R. Barry Fisher Building on the HMSC campus to host “Science Zone,” one of several themed exhibit areas open to the public. The Science Zone focused on several themes, including:

• Cutting-edge research on salmon disease
• The connection between the ocean and human health
• Fieldwork techniques
• Pollution and its effects on watersheds using a hands-on, interactive model
• Marine Mammal and Endangered species research
  

 
The Science Zone was sponsored by NWFSC in collaboration with several other NOAA offices, Oregon State University, the Cooperative Institute for Marine Research (CIMRS), and Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Timi Vann, the new coordinator for NOAA’s West Regional Collaboration Team, said SeaFest was an excellent outreach opportunity to highlight NOAA’s products and services on the West Coast.

“It was also great to see [everyone] ‘in action’ and it’s always good to see how science is being explained to the public,” added Vann, who got her hands wet (literally) by helping dozens of children identify endangered salmon species from the Pacific Northwest.

SeaFest participants got a chance to learn about several other NOAA line offices, including:

• NOAA Weather Service’s Portland Forecast Office participated again this year with a very popular display highlighting weather forecasting products in the Northwest.
• NOAA Corps Lt. Cmdr. Devin Brakob worked NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations display and introduced visitors to the nation’s seventh and smallest uniformed service.
• NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and Oregon State University’s CIMRS program showcased extraordinary video of submarine eruptions from the West Mata volcano taken on their recent cruise to the Northeast Lau Basin. PMEL’s new Slocum glider (an autonomous underwater vehicle or AUV) and ocean acoustics research were also on display.
• NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement agent Murray Bauer partnered with U.S. Fish and Wildlife enforcement on a display highlighting enforcement activities, which included information on how to fish legally. Items confiscated by agents, such as pelts, teeth, and ivory, were also on exhibit.

 

Visitors also learned about data collected from coast-wide groundfish surveys, tried their hand working in the age reading fish lab, met observers from the West Coast Groundfish Observer Program, and discovered how ocean conditions today can give scientists clues about the health and productivity of the ocean in the future.

Dozens of NWFSC employees served as event volunteers and supported other collaborative ventures, such as the display on Collaborative Research on Oregon Ocean Salmon (Project CROOS), a project focusing on science to support the management of multistock ocean salmon fisheries.

For more information about SeaFest, including a photo gallery from this year’s event, please visit the NWFSC event page at: http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/features/SeaFest/index.html.