DFWMAS to host the RSF Annual Meeting, May 24th, 2011

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Apr 262011

The Reef Stewardship Foundation is happy to announce that the Dallas Fort Worth Marine Aquarium Society (http://www.dfwmas.org/) is graciously hosting the RSF 2011 Annual Meeting. The meeting will be held on Tuesday night, May 24th, 2011.

The annual meeting will feature presentations from two members of the RSF’s Board of Directors. The first presentation will be from Dr. Brian Plankis and is tentatively titled “The RSF Past and Present: What We’ve Done and Where We are Going”. The second presentation will be from Dr. Ronald L. Shimek and is titled “Providing Adequate Nutrition For Animals In A Reef Aquarium: The Most Difficult Problem That Aquarists Face.”

The meeting will also feature a fund raising raffle of captive bred animals, RSF branded items and breeding equipment. Additional details will be provided as the meeting date approaches.

The RSF will also be holding small focus group meetings of aquaculturists, hobbyists, and hobby leaders for a project that will be announced at the annual meeting. If you currently breed species for the industry or are interested in sustainability of the hobby, please contact us regarding participating in these focus groups on either May 24th or May 25th.

We look forward to discussing the state of the RSF and the hobby at our annual meeting, we hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Brian Plankis

Posted by BrianPlankis at 9:54 am Tagged with: , , , ,

The RSF Partners with Clear Lake HS for Fishing Issue Investigations

RSF News No Responses »
Apr 122011
KickOff2

The Reef Stewardship Foundation is happy to announce the start of a new partnership with Clear Lake High School in Houston, TX. Two weeks ago the classroom portion of our first project began with Aquatic Science teacher Ashley Poloha (pictured at left with RSF Executive Director Brian Plankis). Over 75 students are working together in small groups to investigate the environmental issues of overfishing and bycatch. The students will be working to survey members of their community on their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to their issues. Students will be utilizing RSF supplied digital cameras and laptops to produce videos reporting on the results of their investigations and potential ways the residents of Clear Lake could help reduce the problem of overfishing and bycatch.

We will report back on the progress of the students and share their final videos with our membership on our website and at our annual meeting scheduled for May.

This project was made possible by a grant from the Columbus Zoo Foundation and donations from supporters of the Reef Stewardship Foundation. Your support is greatly appreciated.

 

 

Posted by BrianPlankis at 1:04 am Tagged with: , , ,

RSF recruiting call for NOAA climate literacy grant, deadline 1/11/11

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Jan 032011

The Reef Stewardship Foundation is continuing to develop its ocean literacy and climate literacy curriculum following the success of Project CORALS. The RSF is preparing a grant proposal to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is in search of middle school and high school science teachers interested in an exciting educational research project that focuses on climate and ocean literacies and service learning projects to engage students in local environmental problems and solutions.

We are looking for teachers anywhere in the United States, so everyone is encouraged to prepare a letter of support or contact me directly if they are interested. We may not be able to accept all interested teachers, but will fund as many as grant funds allow.

Please see the attached recruitment letter for additional details. Due to a short deadline for submitting the grant, we must receive all letters of support by January 11th, 2011, so I encourage any interested teachers to contact me ASAP so we can work out any needed details.

Sincerely,

Brian Plankis

Posted by BrianPlankis at 8:40 pm Tagged with: ,

Recent Ocean Literacy Research in United States Public Schools: Results and Implications published by the RSF

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Sep 192010
IEJEE-GreenCoverThumbVol1Iss1

Dr. Brian Plankis, Executive Director of the Reef Stewardship Foundation, and Dr. Meghan Marrero, Director of Curriculum at the U.S. Satellite Laboratory in Rye, NY, have published a peer-reviewed article summarizing recent ocean literacy research in the United States. The focus of the article was on two research studies conducted in the K-12 environment, their results, and their implications for the future of ocean literacy in the United States. The RSF portion of the article reports on the success of Project CORALS that was sponsored by the Ocean Foundation.

Following the RSF’s goal of public dissemination of all of our publications, the article “Recent Ocean Literacy Research in United States Public Schools: Results and Implications” was published in the open access journal International Electronic Journal of Environmental Education – Green. The first issue can be found here:

http://www.iejeegreen.com/index.php/…n/issue/view/1

A direct link to the PDF can be found here:

http://www.iejeegreen.com/index.php/…icle/view/27/8

The abstract:

Recent research conducted on adults in the United States indicates low ocean literacy (Ocean Project, 2009b, 1999), but there is a dearth of peer-reviewed research on K-12 students’ ocean literacy. This paper presents two research studies that examined the ocean and environmental literacy of 464 K-12 students in five states. Like the majority of American adults, most of the student participants in these studies had low initial levels of ocean literacy. Both of these studies, while conducted with different populations of students, suggest that engagement in an ocean literacy-focused program may lead to higher ocean literacy and increased responsible environmental behaviors that help the ocean. The encouraging results of these studies, and their implications, are discussed in relation to the ocean literacy and environmental education communities and the critical need for further large scale and longitudinal empirical studies to support increased significance of ocean literacy in the United States.

Posted by BrianPlankis at 5:34 pm Tagged with: , ,

Education Program Area Publications and Presentations

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May 062010

Plankis, B. & Weatherly, R. (2008). Engaging Students and Empowering Researchers: Embedding Assessment, Evaluation and History into Podcasting. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2008 (pp. 1267-1274). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Plankis, B. (2007). How to retool the classroom aquarium for environmental stewardship. Paper presented at the Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching, Austin, TX.

Plankis, B. (2007). How to Retool the Classroom Aquarium for Environmental Stewardship., Texas Science Teacher, 36(1), 13-15.

Plankis, B. (2007). Hobbyists Advancing the Hobby, Part III: Creating Educational Videos to Share Hobbyists’ Knowledge. Reefkeeping Magazine, 6(11).

Posted by BrianPlankis at 10:09 pm Tagged with: ,

Project DIBS Podcast: Educational Program Student Interviews

RSF News No Responses »
May 032007

The first educational project for Project DIBS involved a single classroom of aquatic science students in SE Texas. The students had two main projects:

1. Study the reproduction of a small marine snail that readily reproduces in captivity, tentatively identified as a Columbellid sp. (See Figure 1). The students setup an experiment with two tanks at 78F (26C) and two other tanks at 82F (28C) to see if the temperature difference would lead to a different rate of reproduction.

Columbellid sp. of marine snail

Figure 1: Columbellid sp. snail used in the study

2. Discuss topics related to current events in coral reef decline, the nature of science, and distinguishing quality scientific information on the internet from false or misleading information with scientific experts and a coral reef conservation volunteer.

At the end of the research study four of the students were interviewed by Rob Weatherly from TalkingReef.com, Eric Borneman, the RSF Science Director, and Brian Plankis, the RSF Executive Director. You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the button below. The students had some positive experiences and learned the value of careful collection of scientific data. While their data did not support statistical significance, the snails kept at 82F (28C) appeared to be reproducing faster than the snails kept at 78F (26C).

Talking Reef Logo

Talking Reef Episode 99 - Project DIBS student interviews

Posted by BrianPlankis at 1:20 pm Tagged with: , ,
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