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COMMUNITY Wednesday, September 28, 2016 Section B1Steve Card, Community Editor541-265-8571 ext. 224 • [email protected]
COASTAL NOTES
BY STEVE CARDOf the News-Times
Several coastal high school students and teachers had an ex-
perience recently that they won’t soon forget. They took part in a cruise aboard Or-egon State University’s re-search vessel Oceanus.
On Sept. 13, the fi ve stu-dents and three teachers de-parted from Newport’s Ya-quina Bay and helped OSU scientists on the Oceanus collect data on marine mam-mals and seabirds between Heceta Bank and Astoria. Along the way, they strength-ened their skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and learned about marine-related careers.
Tracy Crews, Oregon Sea Grant’s marine education manager, and Leigh Torres, an OSU marine mammal re-searcher and an Oregon Sea Grant Extension specialist, led the expedition. Three OSU graduate students served as mentors and demonstrated survey techniques and proper use of scientifi c equipment.
Local people involved on the excursion were Waldport High School teacher Kama Almasi, Newport High School seniors Leland Wood and Natalie DeWitt, and recent Waldport High graduate Etasha Golden. Also included were a teacher from Bandon, a teacher and a student from Warrenton, and a student from North Bend.
These individuals were se-lected after applying for this unique educational oppor-tunity, which was made pos-sible by the National Science Foundation, Oregon State
University, and the Oregon State Legislature.
Crews, who is with the Or-egon Coast STEM hub, came up with this idea of taking the students and teachers on a research cruise.
“The Oregon Legislature actually pays for 12 days on the Oceanus each year from legislative funding,” said Crews. “So each year, OSU puts out a call for propos-als for ship time up to three days and what you would use it for. We decided to combine the at-sea research with the education component.
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LEARN HOW TO GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEPLearn the fundamentals of
getting a good night’s sleep at the next meeting of Dream On, a support group off ered through Samaritan Pacifi c Sleep Lab.
Dream On is open to any-one experiencing problems with sleep. The next group meeting is Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 5:30 p.m., at the Center for Health Education, 740 SW Ninth St. in Newport. Walk-ins are welcome.
Michael Stout, director of Samaritan Pacifi c Sleep Lab, will lead the session. Samaritan Pacifi c Communi-ties Hospital chef and dietary manager Ken Krenzler will prepare refreshments.
For more information, call 541-574-4944 or email [email protected].
SHUTTLE SERVICE PLANNING DURING KITE
FESTIVALThis Saturday and Sunday,
Oct. 1 and 2, Lincoln City will host the 38th annual Fall Kite Festival at the D River State Recreation Site, celebrating the sounds of the ’60s with the theme “Windstock,” The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days.
To minimize traffi c delays, the D River Wayside will be closed to incoming traffi c once the parking lot is full. Visitors attending the festi-val are encouraged to utilize the shuttle service, which will run both days between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Service is being off ered from the Lin-coln City Outlets and the Lin-coln City Community Center parking lots. Shuttle buses are wheelchair accessible and run a continuous loop every 20 minutes. Service dogs are welcome, but no other ani-mals please.
For more information, contact Suzanne Treece at [email protected] or call 541-996-1274.
BOAT OREGON CLASS OFFERED IN NEWPORT
Yaquina Bay Flotilla 54 of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxil-iary will conduct a Boat Or-egon class on Saturday, Oct. 1, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Port of Newport Marina/RV Park offi ce building.
The cost of the class is $15 per person, which includes lunch and all materials.
All Oregon recreational boaters operating a power-boat with 10 horsepower or greater are required to carry a boater education card show-ing they have completed a basic boating safety class. All boaters 12 to 15 years of age must have a card for operat-ing powerboats of any size.
Those who pass this course (70 percent on exam) will be awarded a certifi cate of com-pletion and an application to apply for a card issued by the Oregon State Marine Board. Families are encouraged to attend.
To register or obtain fur-ther information, call Bev Di-vis at 541-867-6788, or email [email protected] This will be the last class of the season.
PRESS RELEASES AND PHOTO
SUBMISSIONSTo submit articles and
photos, please include the name and phone num-ber of a contact person. Press releases should be e-mailed to [email protected]
A teacher and several students from Lincoln County recently took part in a research cruise about Oregon State University’s research vessel, Oceanus. Pictured are: Kama Al-masi, left, a teacher at Waldport High School, Etasha Golden, a recent Waldport gradu-ate, Natalie DeWitt, a senior at Newport High, and Leland Wood, also a senior at Newport High. (Photo courtesy of Tracy Crews)
Etasha Golden (foreground) and Dr. Leigh Torres watch for whales aboard the R/V Oceanus. (Photo courtesy of Kama Almasi)
A taste of marine research
The Oregon Coast Aquar-ium will celebrate Sea Otter Awareness Day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 1. This event celebrates the vital role these threatened animals play in the nearshore ecosys-tem, and highlights how the Oregon Coast Aquarium pro-vides top-notch animal care for its four rescued sea otters: Judge, Schuster, Nuka and Oswald.
In the wild, sea otters prey on sea urchins, which graze on kelp. Enough urchin-grazing can eventually cut these massive strands of al-gae loose, which then drift off and die. When sea otters aren’t around to keep urchin populations in check, these kelp forests — and all the spe-cies that depend on them — can suff er. Thus sea otters are a keystone in the kelp forest ecosystem: take them away, and the whole foundation can collapse.
“Our event is an exciting way to teach people about the ecological importance of sea otters along the Pacifi c
coast, as well as demonstrate steps we can all take to create a healthier environment for them,” said Lindsey Sprague, a marine mammologist at the aquarium. “Our four rescued sea otters serve as ambassa-dors for their wild counter-parts, and guests will have the opportunity to come be-hind the scenes with us for a sneak peek into how we look after our ‘boys.’”
Displays and presenta-tions will include informa-tion about how aquarium staff trains, feeds and cares for sea otters. Those on the behind-the-scenes tour will get a glimpse of what goes into sea otter husbandry, from restaurant-quality sea-food preparation to the large collection of toys and other enrichment items that keep these energetic marine mam-mals too busy to get into their own mischief. Additionally, sea otter facts will be spread throughout the aquarium’s exhibits to greet visitors as
OREGON COAST AQUARIUM
Sea Otter Awareness Day to be held
Oswald is one of the resident sea otters at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which is holding Sea Otter Awareness Day on Saturday, Oct. 1. (Photo courtesy of the Oregon Coast Aquarium)AQUARIUM on Page B2
OCEANUS on Page B3
GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY
Helping people research ancestors
On Saturday, Oct. 1, the Lincoln County Genealogical Society will begin a monthly series of programs designed to encourage an interested public to pursue their family history investigations.
The programs, scheduled for 10 a.m. on the fi rst Sat-urday of each month, will consist of a combination of presentations by talented genealogists, Internet top-ics, and sit-down workshops, where members of the public can receive hands-on assis-tance from society members. Meetings are held at the To-ledo Public Library, 173 NW Seventh St.
Emily Aulicino, an expert in the use of DNA testing, will speak Oct. 1 on “The Use of DNA Tests To Trace One’s Ancestry.” Aulicino has researched her own family lineage since 1970, traveling in various U.S. states, the UK, Ireland, and Italy, in the quest for her ancestors. She is a retired teacher with an un-dergraduate degree in historyand a master’s degree in edu-cation. Aulicino is the author of “Genetic Genealogy, The Basics and Beyond.” She is the northwest regional coor-dinator of the International Society of Genetic Genealo-gists.
INPUT SOUGHT
Public Health forum Oct. 4
InterCommunity Health Network Coordinated Care Organization (IHN-CCO) is hosting a community dinner and conversation on Tues-day, Oct. 4, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Center for Health Education, located at 740 SW Ninth St. in Newport.
IHN-CCO, which serves Oregon Health Plan mem-bers in Benton, Lincoln and Linn counties, holds an an-nual public meeting in each county to share the progress being made in health care transformation across the re-gion.
The event is open to the public and off ers an opportu-nity for community members to learn more about health care in Lincoln County, share ideas, and ask questions
Those interested in at-tending should register at samhealthplans.org/conver-sation, or call 541-768-7778. Free child care will be pro-vided, and rides are available by appointment.
INPUT SOUGHT on Page B2
GENEALOGY on Page B2
Wednesday, September 28, 2016 News-Times • Newport, OR B3
“Since we’re with the Or-egon Coast STEM hub, we really wanted to reach out to students who were in the 20 school districts that we serve along the coast,” added Crews. Those school districts range from Astoria down to Brookings. “Everybody who applied was extremely well qualifi ed,” she said.
A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE
Most students will not get the chance to go on a re-search vessel until they’re in graduate school, said Crews. “We have diffi culty with kids who start out with STEM ca-reer pathways in college, and there’s a lot of really tough courses that you have to go through,” she said. “So my thought was taking that car-rot and dangling it a heck of a lot quicker. So when you bump up against all of these hard courses and you wonder what in the heck you’re doing … they actually have a better idea what it would be like out there.”
The local students who took part all agreed it was an incredible experience.
Etasha Golden, who gradu-ated from Waldport High in June, is now attending OSU and is pursuing a degree in environmental engineering with hopes of becoming an ocean engineer.
“I got to meet people and learn about diff erent engi-
neering aspects on a boat, because there is like three diff erent types of ocean engi-neering, which I didn’t know before,” Golden said. She said the highlight for her occurred on the fi rst evening, when they encountered around 50 humpback whales right at sunset.
“They were surface-feed-ing, they weren’t even diving for their food because all the plankton was just fl oating on the top of the water,” said Golden. “They would just come up and open up their mouths and take big gulps of water. It was incredible.”
Natalie DeWitt said she re-ally had no idea what to ex-pect when she learned she had been selected to take part in the trip. “I just hoped that we’d be able to see some marine biology and have a chance to help on a boat and experience what it’s like to live on a boat.”
TAKING PART IN RESEARCH
But the students did more than just observe, they took an active role in the research. “We all took turns being on the top level of the boat, and we would just look for ani-mals,” said DeWitt. “When we saw them we would docu-ment what we saw, what di-rection they were in, how far they were.”
The students also helped to deploy conductivity, depth and temperature sensors (CDTs) used to monitor the ocean conditions.
“It’s an opportunity that very few people ever have un-less you go into marine biol-ogy and very, very few high schoolers are ever presented with,” DeWitt said. “So I think it’s kind of a glimpse into what you could do with marine biology, and it defi -nitely brought me new per-spective on science that I’ve never had before.”
Leland Wood said, “It was advertised that we were go-ing to help with the research, and that’s kind of what we expected, like sit back and watch what they were doing and pitch in every now and then, but that really wasn’t what happened. On the ac-tual cruise, we were pretty much doing the research right alongside them, play-ing an active role in their re-search, helping every step of the way.”
HUNDREDS OF DOLPHINS
One of the highlights for Wood was their encounter with dolphins. “We saw sev-eral pods of a couple hundred dolphins,” he said. “They came up to our boat and were all around us and were bow-riding on the front. It was just really amazing to see them.”
Prior to the trip, Wood knew he wanted to pursue a career in marine research, but he wasn’t sure exactly what form that might take. “On the trip I spent a lot of time talking to the grad stu-dents and professors, and it kind of changed the direc-tion on what I want to do,” he said.
Kama Almasi, the Wald-port High teacher, was excit-ed to be going on the trip be-cause she loves research. “I worked right along with the students. There was a pro-fessor from OSU and three graduate students on board, and they taught us how to take the observations that they needed for their data. It was a working cruise for all of us, (and) we were exhaust-ed at the end.
“It was one of the most ex-citing things I’ve ever done,” added Almasi. “I brought it back to my students, (and) they all got excited. I showed pictures. I also blogged, I wrote about two blog posts a day.”
Almasi said the group saw hundreds of marine mam-mals. “They estimated about 500 individuals. We saw eight diff erent species of ma-rine mammal … seven diff er-ent species of whale, dolphin and porpoise. It was unbe-lievable.”
On Sept. 16, the ship docked in Portland for an open house for the public and
Portland-area high schoolers and educators. The coastal students and teachers helped lead tours of the Oceanus. Researchers gave presenta-tions, and an onboard dinner was held for educators.
A BONDING EXPERIENCE
In summing up this trip, Crews said, “It was amaz-ing to bring this group of people together, to have this level of energy and to see them all bond over the few days they were out at sea. And even the crew on the Oceanus, it was conta-gious, the enthusiasm and the energy.”
People interested in learning
more about the trip can fi nd information online at the fol-lowing blog sites:
• Oregon Coast STEM Hub’s blog at blogs.oregon-state.edu/oregoncoaststem
• Leigh Torres’ lab at blogs.oregonstate.edu/gemmlab
• Waldport High School teacher Kama Almasi’s blog at almasiscience.edublogs.org
Contact reporter Steve Card at 541-265-8571, ext. 224, or [email protected]
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OCEANUSContinued from page 1
Newport High School senior Leland Wood, front, helps de-ploy a conductivity, depth and temperature sensors (CDT) while on a research cruise aboard the R/V Oceanus. (Photos courtesy of Tracy Crews)
The R/V Oceanus docked in Portland on Sept. 16 for an open house for the public and Portland-area high schoolers and educators. The coastal students and teachers, who were aboard the research cruise, helped lead tours of the vessel.
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