{"id":247226,"date":"2017-02-27T06:06:34","date_gmt":"2017-02-26T20:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=247226"},"modified":"2017-02-27T06:06:34","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T20:06:34","slug":"marine-biology-outreach-seeks-inspire-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/marine-biology-outreach-seeks-inspire-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine biology outreach seeks to inspire youth"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-247226 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/marine-biology-outreach-seeks-inspire-youth\/marine-photo1\/'>Marine-Photo1<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-247228'>\n\t\t\t\tSea Grant fellow Valeri Lapacek, right, chats with a mentor next to a touch tank with starfish, sea cucumbers, and corals.\u00a0\u00a0(Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/marine-biology-outreach-seeks-inspire-youth\/marine-photo2\/'>Marine-Photo2<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-247229'>\n\t\t\t\tParticipants examine an otolith, or a bone-like structure from fish ears, under a microscope with help from Sea Grant Turtle Education Outreach intern Marcel Jardeleza. (Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/marine-biology-outreach-seeks-inspire-youth\/marine-photo3\/'>Marine-Photo3<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-247230'>\n\t\t\t\tParticipants look for the ink pen of a squid. (Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/marine-biology-outreach-seeks-inspire-youth\/marine-photo4\/'>Marine-Photo4<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-247231'>\n\t\t\t\tAn aspiring diver tries on a marine biologist gear. (Contributed Photo)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Feb. 4 was a busy day for Valeri Lapacek.<\/p>\n<p>A University of Guam master of science in Biology candidate and University of Guam Sea Grant fellow, Lapacek was hosting a community outreach called \u201cA Day in the Life of a Marine Biologist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the outreach, Lapacek taught kids about what marine biologists do, shared her excitement about the ocean and its inhabitants, and educated them about the importance of corals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am trying to spark passion and excitement in the participants for coral reefs. In order to increase conservation and protection, people must care about the environment,\u201d said Lapacek. \u201cIf you don\u2019t find it exciting or you don\u2019t know much about the ocean, why would you want to protect it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sea Grant fellows\u2014UOG graduate students receiving funds to support their research\u2014must design and implement outreach activities as part of their proposed work plans.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The five-hour &#8220;Day in the Life&#8221; at UOG&#8217;s Marine Lab included tasks that a marine biologist may perform regularly. Youth participants, ages 7 to 15 years old, observed jellyfish, sea cucumbers, and starfish in touch tanks, practicing survey techniques used to describe and monitor organisms. They also spent a few hours doing lab work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt one station, kids were able to dissect a coral polyp and examine its eggs\u2014all while looking through a microscope. The other station allowed kids to grind up coral tissue into a slurry, make a microscope slide, and use a microscope to look for tiny algae cells that live in coral tissue,\u201d said Lapacek.<\/p>\n<p>The coral tissue lab stations were particularly important to Lapacek, who researches the reproductive biology of Guam\u2019s staghorn\u00a0Acropora\u00a0coral. She examines how coral health impacts, such as bleaching events, impact the staghorn coral\u2019s ability to reproduce efficiently.<\/p>\n<p>Community collaboration<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A Day in the Life of a Marine Biologist&#8221; was a collaboration between Sea Grant&#8217;s Turtle Education Outreach Interns, informally known as \u201cT-Squad,\u201d Sea Grant faculty Marie Auyong, and Big Brothers Big Sisters Guam.<\/p>\n<p>Big Brothers Big Sisters Guam is a nonprofit agency that matches children (&#8220;Littles&#8221;) facing adversity with adult &#8220;Big&#8221; brothers or sisters. The organization also manages an AmeriCorps cohort of volunteers based at school and community sites.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a nutshell, we match volunteer role models with youth for a one-to-one mentoring relationship. We provide case management support for the matches and we plan regular enrichment activities for the program participants,\u201d says BBBSG executive director Vanessa Estella.<\/p>\n<p>Lapacek chose to work with this organization for a few specific reasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst, I was able to target two audiences:\u00a0kids,\u00a0and young adults. Secondly, the BBBSG pairs had to work together as a team to complete the tasks, since most of the activities were challenging,\u201d said Lapacek.<\/p>\n<p>The importance of this outreach event resounded heavily with T-squad interns and BBBSG volunteers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOutreaches like these that expose youth to different careers could allow\u00a0them\u00a0to start developing dreams and start thinking about the kind of future they could have someday,\u201d said T-squad intern and junior biology major Marcel Jardeleza.\u00a0 \u201cThis event was the definition of \u2018bringing science to the people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>BBBSG AmeriCorps volunteer Domini Prudente said, \u201cKids experienced a new world of creatures that piqued their curiosity. This event also allowed them to experience socializing with intellectuals and make new friends through the event.&#8221; \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For more information about Sea Grant fellows or how to design science-based community education events, contact Marie Auyong at auyongm@triton.uog.edu.\u00a0<em>(UOG)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 4 was a busy day for Valeri Lapacek. A University of Guam master of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":247228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,18],"tags":[15738,163,15739,67],"class_list":["post-247226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-pacific","tag-bbbsg","tag-kids","tag-marie-auyong","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}