Articles

• Baitfish
• 10 Questions on MASGC Communications Program
• Bays & Bayous Symposium
• Coastal Cleanup
• B-WET Grant
• NOAA Gives a Lift
• Oyster Invasion
• Announcements
• Upcoming Events
• Featured Publication
• From the Director

Sea Briefs is a report on the results of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Editor: Laura Bowie

This newsletter is available in PDF format from:
masgc.org/seabriefs

MASGC supports applied, interdisciplinary marine science research, education and outreach efforts to foster the sustainable development and management of the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and nearshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico

Mississippi-Alabama
Sea Grant Consortium
703 East Beach Drive
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
Phone: 228-818-8838
E-mail: seabriefs@masgc.org
MASGP 08-011-04

B-WET Grant
Inland opportunities for farm-raised marine baitifsh

The NOAA Office of Education Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) program recently recommended funding a grant request for a local watershed learning experience. MASGC is also providing funding. Jessica Kastler will coordinate the effort through the J.L. Scott Marine Education Center at The University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. The proposed project is designed for middle school teachers in Mississippi and Alabama who will work with marine science educators for three years to implement a watershed education program. The program, “Shifting Baselines: Watershed Connections to Landscape Changes,” will focus on the concept that people are unable to completely understand the changes that occur in resource availability because they begin documenting resources after they have already begun to change them. Coastal landscape changes will be described in oral histories developed by MASGC and examined in historic maps and aerial photographs. Changes on the coast will be compared to changes that occur in watersheds surrounding each participating school.

“An important aspect of the proposed watershed education project is community-building,” said Kastler. “Motivated teachers and students will work with the J. L. Scott Marine Education Center for three years; thus building a learning community designed to examine the relationship among inland and coastal habitats.”