Public and Educational Outreach Products From Our Research

2006 Podcasts (Video .m4v files from Ruth Cooper, middle school student, St. John Neumann Catholic School, Farragut Tennessee):

Ruth interviews Jim Lovvorn (University of Wyoming)

Ruth interviews Patty Janes (Scholastic Magazines, Inc.)

Ruth and Jim Dalitsch, ship operations officer

Ruth interviews Markus Janout (graduate student at University of Alaska Fairbanks)

2007 Podcasts (from Sir Wilfrid Laurier; see Polar Palooza website for Healy videos)

Peter Lee (University of Charleston) explains his research efforts aboard the Sir Wilfrid Laurier (video)

Polar bear seen from Sir Wilfrid Laurier in Barrow Canyon (video)

Walruses on ice in Barrow Canyon (video)

Lee Cooper talks with high school teacher Betty Carvellas about her work onboard the Laurier as part of the benthic sampling team (sound-only .mp3 file) Ms. Carvellas also maintained a journal with photos about her experiences on the Laurier cruise that is hosted by Polar Palooza.

Lee Cooper talks with Deutschlandfunk (German public radio) reporter Monika Seynsche about her public outreach efforts from the Sir Wilfrid Laurier (sound-only .mp3 file). Ms. Seynsche broadcast a special series for Deutshlandfunk on the Arctic that aired in Germany on the Arctic in 2008.

Other podcasts and educational outreach in 2006-2007:

Annie Feidt, Alaska Public Radio, reported from the ship on Alaska News Nightly, an evening news program heard across Alaska on public and community radio stations. A .mp3 sound file of her news report is available at this link for personal, non-commercial use.

Karen de Seve of the Liberty Science Center (Jersey City, New Jersey) has made available photographs, interviews, and online video through a blog at http://beringsea.blogspot.com.  Karen was aboard the ship for several days as part of preparation efforts for an arctic research exhibit at the Liberty Science Center, which specializes in science education at the K-12 level.  Hear her June 28, 2006 podcast interview with Scientific American host Steve Mirsky

Alan Stahler, host of the science communication show, Soundings, heard in northern California on community radio KVMR also recorded a live interview to the ship from the KVMR studios in Nevada City, California. The full program, including our 30 minute interview is available through this link as a .mp3 file.  Note that the copyright for this recording is held by KVMR, and it is made available here for personal, non-commercial use only.

Earth & Sky - www.earthsky.org
"Warming means food changes for Arctic animals" is a 9-minute podcast posted on April 24, 2007 with Jackie Grebmeier describing our research.

Major ecosystem shift in Arctic seas - is the 90-second radio short piece from Earth & Sky (Program #5183 of the Earth & Sky Radio Series with hosts Deborah Byrd and Joel Block)

Video and sound professionals from Polar Palooza, an International Polar Year (IPY) project of Passport to Knowledge/Geoffrey Haines-Stiles Productions, Inc.  participated in our 2007 cruise.  High-quality educational videos are available about our project as well as other polar research projects.

KNOM radio interviews. We talked about the scientific goals and objectives of the Shelf-Basin Interactions program during a three-part radio interview provided to Nome Alaska radio station KNOM in May 2004 prior to the first process cruise in 2004. Also a second series of KNOM profiles are available that describe the icebreaker Healy. These recordings were made during a tour of the ship provided by the Coast Guard while it was offshore of Nome in July 2004. These .mp3 files were produced and are owned by the News Department of KNOM radio, PO Box 988, Nome, AK 99762. These files are not to re-distributed or reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. In order to listen to the files, your computer must have appropriate audio software such as Windows Media Player or i-Tunes. Copyright 2004, KNOM radio.

KNOM radio interview\Grebmeier_and_CooperI.mp3 Length of file: 8:27

KNOM radio interview\Grebmeier_and_Cooper2.mp3 Length of file: 9:40

KNOM radio interview\Grebmeier_and_Cooper3.mp3 Length of file: 7:06

KNOM radio interview\Healy_tour1.mp3 Length of file: 9:38

KNOM radio interview\Healy_tour2.mp3 Length of file: 6:14

KNOM radio interview\Healy_tour3.mp3 Length of file: 5:26

Information on apparently abandoned walrus calves observed in 2004. Considerable public interest on a worldwide basis has been generated by observations that were made from the SBI Process Cruise in July-August 2004 aboard the USCGC Healy. The locations of nine lone calves that were observed in open, deep (up to 3000 m depth), ice-free, and unusually warm surface waters north of Barrow were documented in a paper published in the journal Aquatic Mammals:

Cooper, L.W., C.J. Ashjian, S.L. Smith, L.A. Codispoti, J.M. Grebmeier, R.G. Campbell, E.B. Sherr, 2006. Rapid seasonal sea-ice retreat in the Arctic could be affecting Pacific Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) recruitment. Aquatic Mammals 32(1): 98-102, doi 10.1578/AM.32.1.2006.98

In this paper, we concluded that it was likely that the rapid retreat of sea ice during and immediately before our cruise resulted in the separation of these nursing calves from adult females who normally spend the summer feeding on animals such as clams and other invertebrates that are present in the bottom sediments on arctic continental shelves. Walruses, including calves, typically use sea ice as a resting platform, but in recent years, sea ice has retreated in this part of the Arctic until it is only present in the summer over deep water (4000 m) north of Alaska where walruses are unable to feed. We concluded in our study that this pattern of rapid ice retreat therefore may have negative effects on the recruitment of walruses into the population.

A radio interview providing some more background information and playable by software such as i-Tunes or Windows Media Player is available here for downloaded listening. Copyright is retained by Alaska News Nightly and Alaska Public Radio and the file cannot be re-used or re-broadcast without permission of the copyright holders.

Results from the ship-based sampling that have been supported by both NSF and  NOAA were published in the 10 March 2006 issue of Science:

A Major Ecosystem Shift in the Northern Bering Sea by J.M. Grebmeier, J.E. Overland, S.E. Moore, E.V. Farley, E.C. Carmack, L.W. Cooper, K.E. Frey, J.H. Helle, F.A. McLaughlin, and S.L. McNutt, Science 311: 1461-1464.  DOI: 10.1126/Science.1121365. As a public service, Science is providing free electronic access to the paper through a special link available here.

Related news coverage from selected sources: All Things Considered, National Public Radio  National Geographic News ABC News  and last, but far from least, download the feature article from the Nome Nugget, Alaska's oldest newspaper.

The Bering Strait Observatory project is a multi-institutional venture with participants from the University of Tennessee, the University of Maryland, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  We have also benefited from the help of the residents of Diomede, the Bering Straits School District, and the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards, and funding from the Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research (NOAA).  We have used the Canadian Coast Guard ship Sir Wilfrid Laurier annually each July starting in 1998 through 2007 to sample regions of high productivity in the Bering and Chukchi Seas through a cooperative agreement with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and under the umbrella of the Canadian government's International Joint (Japan-Canada) Western Arctic Climate Study (JWACS).   In both 2005 and 2006, the Sir Wilfrid Laurier provided support for recovery of moorings in Bering Strait maintained by the University of Washington and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Rebecca Woodgate, lead principal investigator.  View or download a video-podcast of the mooring deployment in July 2006 (requires free i-tunes software from Apple---www.apple.com/itunes). File size is 21 MB.

Audio program from Diomede

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Recorded and produced by Kathy Turco, Alaska's Spirit Speaks: Sound & Science

This is a self-contained web-based audio program recorded at Diomede, and it includes local residents talking about life on the island, subsistence hunting, as well as scientists associated with our research program talking about science goals. Files are in streaming audio format, are for private, non-commercial use, are copyrighted and cannot be re-used, reproduced, or distributed without permission of the copyright holders. Required software: Macromedia Flashplayer (free if not already on your computer and available from Adobe,  http://www.adobe.com). The Info/Options link within the site will allow you to listen to the audio in streaming mode or to download the segment files (recommended for low bandwidth connections)

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