Remember the voyage to the island of garbage in the North Pacific Gyre? It’s a unqiue collaboration between Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and the nonprofit Project Kaisei. Known as SEAPLEX (Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition), the marine scientists on board are attempting to quantify hundreds of miles of floating plastic debris and determine the effects it may have on marine life.
I’ve just heard from Miriam Goldstein–intrepid chief scientist of SEAPLEX–about the huge SIO grad student-driven communication effort surrounding this cruise. They are working to involve the public in cutting-edge research through a website, mission blog, live Tweets from the ship, and the very cool set of Flickr project photos!
The SEAPLEX team has been featured on Science Friday, CNN, Reuters, Yahoo News, NBC San Diego, the Irish Times, and ScienceBlogs! It’s a wonderful initiative–not only because it’s intended to protect the environment and increase public understanding of oceans issues, but also in that it serves to highlight the kind of ‘New Scientists‘ we celebrate!
CM and I are following along with great interest…
August 28th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Jersey’s on water now?
August 29th, 2009 at 12:43 am
[...] cooperation between publisher Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and the n. Read more here: Understanding The Texas-Sized Island Of Garbage | The Intersection … Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: computer, especially-if-you, marine-science, [...]
August 29th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Thanks, Sheril! We really appreciate the kind words! I should also add that the outreach component of SEAPLEX was inspired by the same SIO class that you & Chris were lecturing in a couple weeks back, which I took 3 years ago. The class is part of the Marine Biodiversity IGERT at SIO.
October 24th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Thank you for your research. I am including your information in my references and footnotes for an artilce I am writing about plastics. This was extremely helpful. If you know of other expeditions, please let me know. I would like to include as many as I can.
Thanks again!
Tracy
November 5th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
[...] videos on the expedition are available at Dive Into Your [...]