Related News

SPMC receives $558,000 NSF grant

Kathy Van Alstyne, a marine scientist at Western Washington University’s Shannon Point Marine Center, has received a four-year $558,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the ways in which the naturally-produced chemicals made by marine seaweeds alter the chemistry of other plant species and the behavior of animals that prey on them.

Full Story: WWU News

(September 2011)

Art Exhibit from Marine Sciences Internship

An art exhibition titled “Not Nature: New Photographic Works by Joe Rudko” will be on display through Monday, Nov. 7 in the lobby of the Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (SMATE) building on the campus of Western Washington University.

Full Story: WWU News

(Fall 2011)

Expansion to COSEE PP Marine Lab Partners

This year, as a test of this dispersed network, we continued activities at the two Oregon marine labs and expanded them to three additional Pacific marine laboratories. Each of these labs is engaging their scientists to develop programs based on COSEE PP models and tailored to their specific needs, often using products developed by the COSEE Network that support our Center goals.

Western Washington University – Shannon Point Marine Center
For the past two summers, Shannon Point Marince Center (SPMC) Director Dr. Steve Sulkin has hosted community college student interns in the PRIME program. This summer Dr. Jude Apple, SPMC Marine Scientist & Public Education Specialist, offered a week-long workshop on current oceanographic topics with their scientists and local community college faculty.

SPMC has strong connections with the Northwest Indian College and the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, and is engaging both institutions in their activities. They are currently developing a Communicating Ocean Sciences for Informal Audiences (COSIA) course.

(Fall 2010)

Northwest Straits

Skagit Volunteers Learn Oceanographic Sampling Techniques

This month, Dr. Paul Dinnel, Skagit MRC and faculty member at Western Washington University's Shannon Point Marine Center, led a full day of hands-on marine sampling aboard the R/V Zoea, using a variety of nets, mechanical grabs, and even a remotely operated vehicle which relayed brilliant underwater footage of sea pens and other fauna to the surface. Commission staff member Caroline Gibson joined the happy group of nine MRC and Washington State University Beach Watcher volunteers last week for the first of two gear training cruises in Burrows Bay and Bellingham Channel. The group collected and gently released an array of creatures including colorful nudibranchs, sculpins, cod and other fishes, urchins, jellyfish, marine worms, sea stars, and at least five species of crab and shrimp.

Dr. Dinnel also described the basic geology of nearby bluffs and beaches and their relevance to shoreline development issues, including the impacts of hard armoring on forage fish spawning habitat. Ivar Dolph, a fellow MRC member on board, pointed out hot spots for pigeon guillemots, which he has surveyed three consecutive years as they return to pair up and nest in ancient cliffside burrows. This trip proved that getting out in the sunshine is the best way to learn!

(Summer 2010)