Junctures - The Journal for Thematic Dialogue
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What Will Parents Pay for Hands-on Ocean Conservation and Stewardship Education?
Get PDFSupported by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, the Ocean Guardian School (OGS) program is a federally funded grant program coordinated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. OGS supports the educational goals of national marine sanctuaries (NMS) by funding hands-on ocean conservation and stewardship programs in both public and private schools. Schools apply for grants (up to $4,000) to implement school- or community-based conservation projects to educate students, while contributing to the health and protection of local watersheds and the world’s ocean. This study is the first to estimate the value that parents have for their child’s participation in an ocean conservation and stewardship program. Using a contingent choice survey, changes to student behaviour, parents’ support for the OGS program and the non-market economic value to parents of the six program attributes are estimated
Wāhine Māori Reflections on Wai
Get PDFIntroduction to four case studies:As Māori we are strongly connected to the ocean and to the water. These connections form the fabric of who we are and of our identity. As we age and mature, the nature of our relationship to the water changes as well. In this series of papers, we will share some of our insights and reflectionsabout being wāhine Māori today and the connections of indigenous identity to the ocean, to water and to the world in general. We are four researchers from Te Koronga, a Māori research excellence kaupapa based at the University of Otago. Tēnei mātou te koronga.
High-resolution Measurement of Seawater Carbonate
Get PDFSince the start of the Industrial Revolution, the chemistry of seawater has been significantly changed by the absorption of fossil fuel CO2 (carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere. When CO2 is absorbed by seawater, it sets off a series of chemical reactions: carbonic acid (H2CO3) is formed, which then dissociates to H3O+ and bicarbonate (HCO3-). The H3O+ reacts with carbonate ions (CO32-), forming additional bicarbonate. The overall reaction is the production H3O+ and the consumption of carbonate, a process referred to as ocean acidification.While pH and local variability is relatively straightforward to measure in the field, carbonate concentration is difficult to measure directly. In order to address this limitation, our laboratory has developed a range of hand-held sensors to measure fine-scale carbonate changes in the field
Tipping Points in Coastal Ecosystems
Get PDFChange can happen fast in our coastal ecosystems and we often do not know what has been lost until it’s too late. Once ecological ‘tipping points’ are passed, it is difficult to reverse the state of the ecosystem.1 Often these changes creep up on us because they are caused by the cumulative impact of multiple stressors. These changes in ecosystems mean we can lose important ecosystem functions that underpin many of the things we value about out coastal ecosystems. One of the key challenges of ecosystem-based management (EBM) is therefore to identify what combination of stressors are likely to cause threshold changes and what parts of the ecosystem are most likely to be affected. A multi-institutional team of scientists from across New Zealand is conducting the science to assess the risk of passing these ‘tipping points’ in estuaries before they happen
Art-Science Collaboration: Blending the Boundaries of Practice
Get PDFThe Art + Oceans Project was the sixth in the ongoing ‘Art + Science’ Project series, where artists collaborate with scientists individually, or in pairs, to develop artworks for public exhibition relating to science interpreted in a broad context.In Art + Oceans, collaborators tackled the complexities of our changing marine environment; working together over several months (from October 2017 to July 2018), they produced many generative interactions between art and science. The large group exhibition (held in the Otago Museum’s HD Skinner Annex, 23 July–5 August 2018) represented 26 collaborations between artists (including graduates, staff and senior students of the Dunedin School of Art and the School of Design at Otago Polytechnic) and scientists (from University of Otago science departments including Surveying, Physics, Anatomy, Chemistry, Botany, Marine Science, Physical Education and Science Communication; as well as the University of British Columbia; the Cawthron Institute; LandcareResearch; the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA); and research collectives including Coastal Acidification: Rate, Impacts & Management (CARIM) and the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge)
How do You Map a Von Karman Vortex Street and How do You Use One to Generate Electricity?
Get PDFSwirling structures in calmly flowing water inspire a deep, primal sense of peace and well-being. At the same time, images of Poe’s maelstrom in turbulent oceans inspire a sense of terror.1 Throughout the duration of my PhD, modelling the flow through ocean channels full of tidal turbines, I experienced both of those feelings. The mathematical beauty in my work is involved in the equations that I use to describe the ocean flowing through a tidal channel full of turbines. A von Karman vortex street is the repeating pattern in parallel rows of swirling eddies that form in the wake of an obstruction in flowing fluid. The beauty and terror that eddies inspire in humanity is mirrored by the blessing and curse that these cause for engineers designing tidal turbines. While the fast-flowing water provides the power to drive the turbine, the turbulent vortices in the wake of a turbine put stress on downstream turbines by bending and twisting the blade as a vortex moves past the turbine. Understanding the balance between the power in the flow that can be captured by turbines and the impact on the natural flow by building these turbines was a fundamental part of my research
Coccolithophore Relief: An Art and Science Interrogation of Ocean Acidification
Get PDFOrganisms that remove carbon from the world’s carbon cycle are becoming ever more important as we try to constrain our carbon emissions to slow climate change. Marine phytoplankton, like coccolithophores, are responsible for 50 percent of global carbon fixation. Through photosynthesis, which also produces oxygen as a by-product, they fix carbon dioxide throughout their lives in the surface waters of the ocean. Even in their death, they help remove carbon from the system. Coccolithophores make armoured plates (coccoliths, hereafter referred to as ‘liths’) from calcium carbonate, which together form a sort of external skeleton for each organism. When they die, they sink and join bottom sediments, in effect exporting and burying carbon in deep-sea sediments.We decided to share the story of coccolithophores, including their important environmental role and their sensitivity to ocean acidification, with the public. We intentionally developed a project involving social arts practice to help people reflect on the importance of these small things. This included the beauty of the tiny liths that make up the coccolithophore’s amour, the importance of each little lith to collectively make a healthy organism (that in turn has an important global role), and the effect of our individual small actions contributing to climate change. Engaging communities in social arts practice, by involving hands-on making with cognitive activity, gives time and space for such criticalreflection.5 Joining key features of the scientific narrative with congruent aspects of the art-making can serve to reinforce understanding and potential behaviour change
Where’s the Switch?
Get PDFSex change occurs as a usual part of the life cycle for many ray-finned fish, often following specific social cues. It has been shown that environmental factors can interact with, and sometimes override,genetic factors to control sexual development. More dramatically, in many marine fish, individuals can change sex as an adaptive response to environmental changes even during adulthood. Such sensitivity to environmental stimuli may explain why teleost or bony fishes display such highly diverse sex determination and developmental systems, which make them good models for understanding vertebrate sexual development. The exact mechanism behind the transduction of the environmental signals into the molecular cascade that underlies this singular transformation remains largely unknown. Cortisol is the main glucocorticoid in fish and the hormone most directly associated with stress. However, the exact role of cortisol or stress in transducing the external signals to elicit physiological responses during sexual development and sex change remains a mystery