23 January 2013 Arctic Plenary Session: Meet Abby G

“Esghallghilnguq,
Nagaqullghilnguq,
Nanghiillghilnguq,
Nalluksaghqaq.”

“What you do not see,
Do not hear,
Do not experience,
You will never really know.”
Thank you “Lore of St. Lawrence Island: Echoes of our Eskimo Elders”

The Alaska Marine Science Symposium is set up in an orderly fashion.
Day 1 Intro with Key Note speakers
Day 2 Arctic Plenary Session
Day 3 Bering Sea & Aleutian Islands Plenary Session
Day 4 Gulf of Alaska Plenary Session

Each day there are talks about various topics, the ecosystem, humans, climate and oceanography, lower tropic levels, fish and fish habitat and then my favorites seabirds and mammals.

I have been very impressed by Abby’s questions during the presentations. It is clear to see that she really wants to learn and understand what the scientists are saying. Many times we have to look up words or acronyms together. One word that Abby looked up was Anthropogenic. For those of you that don’t know the meaning, it refers to the impact that humans have on Earth.

Meet Abby G

Arctic plenary session

In the morning we started talking about mooring data. We talked about drifters, which are buoys that follow the currents. The difference between the mooring and the drifter is the drifter is, goes with the current. The moorings are the opposite, which they stay in place and not move.

Robin A. Dublin talked about communicating and using Broader Impacts. Her overall story is that scientist should not only plan out how to do their projects and then how they are going to tell the public about their project. So, obviously, they need money to start their project. They use the NSF which is the National Science Foundation to get money, but to get money they write a grant proposal. There is a section called the Broader Impact that they have to write about to show how they will get the community involved in their work. Last week we visited Dr. Oberbauer at his lab in Miami, he taught us about research projects. That is consider a Broader Impact.

Steven Braund talked about social science…How is it connected to the other sciences? This project consists of what the population of whale sharing is, opinions of the society, where they share the whale’s meat and organs, and how many people share the whale in the process.

Humans ARE part of the ecosystems, we are all connected, we are all affected!

A couple of people talked about why the sea ice and the ice lands are melting and what the cause’s effect. One of the models is the CMIPs, I had no idea what that meant, so I had to ask the speaker it is a Coupled Models Inter-Comparison Project. …duh

Then the mammals entered the presentations, and we talked about polar bears and the populations of them and their health. We also talked about different types of seals, the ribbon and spotted seals, which they talked about tagging. Their data shows where they go in other words, their migration path.

When all the presentations were over, we all want to the Anchorage Museum, which had very interesting stuff. There were bubbles that you could make encase you inside, we saw a really cool chair that elevated, and a giant glass box like a Rube Goldberg machine. It was like the egg crushers we made in 7th grade with the simple machines. When Mrs. Eubanks talks about waves, she uses a slinky to demonstrate what the waves look like. There was a big version of that on the ceiling.

After the day was done, we all played in the** snow**, how snow ball fight, I was kicking everybody butts, that’s fo’ sure. Then I got tired and John slipped, it was FUNNY, but he was okay! So, yeah, that’s all I did today, TTYL peeps! Abby Gibbons

So far it has been an amazing trip- take a peak…. You too could go to a science conference….

http://youtu.be/fUWHxsuJ9Co

Bird of the Day Magpie Pica spp