Virtual Teacher Workshops ~ 2006 main page

Exploring the US Ocean Realms

Workshop #1: October 9-20, 2006
** Registration : You can register now - back to workshop home page!

Week One (October 9-13) ~ "From Sea to Shining Sea"
Be among the first to receive this new map of the ocean floor from the National Geographic, NOAA, MCBI and SkyTruth.
World renowned marine conservation scientists, Dr. Elliott Norse and Dr. Lance Morgan, will be hosting a teachers workshop to discuss place based ocean conservation by introducing a new one of a kind educational map called ‘From Sea to Shining Sea: Exploring US's Ocean Realm'—developed by Marine Conservation Biology Institute, National Geographic, NOAA, and SkyTruth. The map not only depicts the 3.6 million square miles of the US land above sea level, but specifically focuses on the 4.4 million square miles of ocean under US jurisdiction.  This workshop will include compelling ecological stories and conservation status updates on selected ocean places, such as Monterey Bay Canyon, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Georges Bank, Gulf of Alaska seamounts, Beaufort Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico .  
To receive your copy of this map you must register and participate in this online workshop

Beneath the deceptively uniform sea surface, our oceans are under threat from a host of human activities that are altering the sea’s biodiversity. Human impacts from destructive fishing, habitat damage, pollution, over fishing, coastal development, and global climate change all present daunting problems for the way we manage our ocean. Only by showing people that America’s ocean realm, twice the size of our landmass, has a plethora of unique and extraordinary places can we create new “mental maps” that will lead the public towards a greater understanding of the ocean and create pressure for protecting places in the sea.

Just as we protect extraordinary places on land, such Yellowstone Park and Artic National Wildlife Refuge, we need to move towards place based conservation of the unique places in the ocean. American waters contain the most extraordinarily diverse ocean ecosystems found in the world. From the Arctic to the tropics, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, America’s ocean realms comprise places where submarine trenches plummet nearly 7 miles deep, underwater mountains—or seamounts— flourish with deep sea coral forests and atolls thrive with fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Although some of these special places may be tough to actually visit, their protection is vital to the health of the entire ocean and to us.

The workshop and this new map of the US will be distributed to teachers around the country, and the highlighted places on the map will also be featured as an interactive educational tool to explore places in the sea virtually, through the innovative use of Google Earth. Using these diverse media tools, this project aims to change the way we see the United States by creating a new mental image of the US comprised of special places in the ocean that are clearly worth conserving.

Elliott A. Norse, Ph.D., President (Bellevue WA), has primary responsibility for programs, fundraising, and management of MCBI. After finishing his Ph.D. in Marine Ecology at the University of Southern California (1975) and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Iowa (1978), he spent 12 years in Washington, DC, with the US Environmental Protection Agency, President's Council on Environmental Quality, Ecological Society of America, and The Wilderness Society. In 1990, as Chief Scientist of the Center for Marine Conservation, he moved to Redmond, where he founded MCBI in 1996. While working for President Carter, he wrote the CEQ 1980 Annual Report chapter that first defined the concept of biological diversity. His 100+ publications include three books: Conserving Biological Diversity in Our National Forests (1986), Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest (1990), and Global Marine Biological Diversity: A Strategy for Building Conservation into Decision Making (1993). He earned the Evergreen Award for service to the State of Washington and is a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation.

Lance E. Morgan, Ph.D., Chief Scientist (Glen Ellen CA), received his doctorate in Ecology from the University of California-Davis. He serves as program manager for MCBI's west coast marine protected areas (MPA) activities, mapping deep-sea corals and the impacts of destructive fishing practices. He is currently an Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington, in the School of Marine Affairs. He completed postdoctoral research at Bodega Marine Laboratory and NOAA Fisheries before joining MCBI in 2000. His doctoral research focused on the population dynamics of the red sea urchin and its fishery in Northern California. Dr. Morgan's research experience with marine mammals, fishes, and invertebrates gives him exceptional scientific breadth. In recent years his fisheries ecology work has concentrated on designing networks of marine protected areas. He has field experience from many sites along the Pacific coast of North America. His extensive scuba-diving experience includes missions as an Aquanaut at the Aquarius Habitat in Key Largo, Florida. Dr. Morgan has published papers in MEPS, Journal of Wildlife Disease, CA Fish and Game, Journal of Mammalogy, Fisheries Oceanography, CalCOFI Reports, CJFAS and The Lowell Wakefield Fisheries Symposia. Dr. Morgan holds the conservation seat on the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council.