The National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB) Professional Webinar Series is a development opportunity for middle and high school educators nationwide. All educators are welcome to register, and NOSB coaches are highly encouraged to participate.
The free online webinar series will focus on the 2017 NOSB competition theme of “Blue Energy: Powering the Planet with our Ocean“.
Each of the presenters will give a one hour live webinar presentation on their current research or topic of interest, followed by a 30 minute Q&A session.
All participants logged into the meeting will be able to listen and follow along with the presentation, as well as type questions for the presenter during the live presentation. The NOSB national office staff will read the questions to the presenter.
Questions? Please contact us at nosb@ucar.edu.
Date of Webinar: January 30, 2017 at 4PM Eastern
Topic/Title: Evaluating Environmental Effects of Offshore Renewable Energy
Dr. Henkel will give a brief primer on the types of offshore renewable energy devices that are being considered for the US West Coast then discuss potential environmental effects and how researchers determine which are most applicable to certain habitats/locations. She will close with some examples of research OSU is conducting to address those potential environmental effects. Some important take-aways from the presentation will be how few actual deployments have taken place in the US (so most of the issues really are hypothetical at this stage) and the difference between effects, which are unavoidable as they are defined as “change”, and impacts, which have a component of scale.
Dr. Sarah Henkel, Hatfield Marine Science Center, Oregon State UniversityDr. Sarah Henkel, Hatfield Marine Science Center, Oregon State University
Dr. Sarah Henkel is a benthic ecologist at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center and Director of Environmental Research at the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center at Oregon State University. Her research interests broadly address potential effects of human activities (e.g. marine renewable energy installations, marine reserve designations, coastal development, invasive species, and climate change) on benthic organisms. She received her B.S. from the College of William and Mary, her master’s degree from California State University, Fullerton, and her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before moving to Oregon State University, Sarah worked at the California Ocean Science Trust working on projects related to invasive species, oil platform decommissioning, and marine protected areas.
