This is a guest post written by STEM education consultant Chris Anderson. Chris writes the science education blog Science Over Everything. 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by ocean. The oceans contain 97% of the Earth’s water and are home to 50% of the Earth’s species. And while 40% of Americans live in … Continue reading
Symposia! AKA great, low stakes opportunities to get out of the office, share the results you have been trying to make sense of for months, and hear about the cool research being done by your peers (plus free food). I had the opportunity to go to a few symposia recently and thought I would … Continue reading
Over the winter break I interviewed Chris Anderson of Science Over Everything about how science researchers can be better science educators. Outside of his scicomm blog, Chris is a consultant with the Hamilton County Educational Service Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He primarily works as an instructional coach to educators and curriculum managers to help them build science … Continue reading
This past weekend, Morehead City, home to UNC Institute of Marine Sciences, hosted the 30th Annual North Carolina Seafood Festival. It was an adventure in itself. There were rides, carnival games, locally-caught seafood, concerts and activities such as the ‘Flounder Fling.’ (Literally they toss giant flounder and not a stuffed replica of Flounder from The … Continue reading
Coral reefs are some of the most diverse and important ecosystems on earth. If you didn’t know that already you probably wouldn’t be here. For background on see these links (1, 2, 3). Also, reefs are beautiful and really cool (see below). However, corals are very sensitive to changes in their environment. They are especially … Continue reading
This article is a guest post by ODU undergradaute Ben Maxie. Ben works in the Barshis Lab and studies the evolution of stress tolerance in corals and other organisms. The 2010 BP Deep-water Horizon oil spill was an environmental tragedy of immense magnitude. Five million barrels of toxic crude oil were leeched into the … Continue reading
This is a guest post by Elyse Dankoski, a neurobiologist at the University of North Carolina. She recently spent 3 months in southeast Madagascar volunteering with Azafady’s Conservation Programme. This fall, I lived in a small community on the southeast coast of Madagascar called Sainte Luce. Sainte Luce is remote even by Madagascar’s standards, and … Continue reading
By now you’ve probably seen one of the many articles we have posted about plastics, recycling, and the garbage problem that plagues the world’s oceans (if not, check them out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). Ocean pollution is obviously an issue that we here are UNdertheC are concerned about. Luckily, we aren’t the … Continue reading
Graduate school is a big commitment. Often times you move to a new place and begin a new program of study. You have to take a bunch of required coursework, do research, and maybe TA (or teach). On top of that, you get a pretty meager stipend in most cases and your research may or … Continue reading
Have you ever heard of the Pitcairn Islands? Answer: Unless you’ve read or seen Mutiny on the Bounty (based on real events), probably not. Well, they are a small group of islands in the middle of the Pacific about halfway between New Zealand and South America. Earlier this month, the British government turned these tiny … Continue reading
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