#vip2015

[academyadventures]

Chat with Filipino Sea Cucumber Expert Don Olavides

I had the opportunity to connect with Don Olavides, a Filipino researcher studying sea cucumbers.  He was kind enough to show us how the scientists process specimens that are brought in from their dives, so that they can be further studied back in the lab.

NOTE: Apologies for my terrible videography skills!

It was really great getting to meet Filipino scientists who were working alongside their American counterparts during the VIP expedition. This international, collaborative partnership is part of what makes our work their so special and valuable, both locally and back at the Academy.

Here’s another video of Don collecting sea cucumbers in the Verde island Passage.

Thanks for the impromptu chat and demo for us, Don!

Don Olavides with Rik

[academyadventures]

Tour of the Academy’s Field Lab in Puerto Galera, Philippines

Check out this short tour of the Cal Academy’s field laboratory in Puerto Galera, Philippines, guided by the Academy’s curator of invertebrate zoology Dr. Rich Mooi.

This was shot fairly late in the evening to avoid the crush of scientists crowding the lab earlier in the afternoon. So there were not as many beautiful specimens on display unfortunately. But I think it still gets across the idea of how the lab is laid out and what our scientists are working on.

Thanks to Dr. Mooi for being a good sport and guiding us on a tour of the lab! Here’s Rich with a particularly cool sea urchin he’s studying.

[academyadventures]

Exposing Filipinos to the Riches of their Reef

One of the awesomest parts about being on the 2015 Verde Island Passage expedition is getting to connect with and educate the local communities around the area. For our presentations, we try very hard to emphasize the enormous wealth in marine biodiversity that the Philippines possesses.

For these island communities, being able to see the ocean around them in a new way is so powerful and maybe life-changing. For our outreach events, you can literally seeing hundreds of minds get blown away when they realize how magnificent the coral reefs are, just a few meters down from the ocean surface. Imagine seeing something your whole life and not realizing that it is ALIVE and so precious to all the life around you?

Here’s ichtyologist Dr. Kent Carpenter from Old Dominion University explaining (in Filipino!) why he calls the Verde Island Passage the “center of the center of marine biodiversity” in the world. 

One big challenge is just getting Filipinos into the water. Despite living so close to the ocean, many people in the communities we spoke to admitted that they did not know how to swim. Several shared that they were actually quite afraid of the water. Parents told me that they didn’t know of any programs where their children could go to even learn to swim.

And beyond just getting in the water is being able to explore the reefs. One young man during our Lobo outreach asked the group how could a normal person in the community like himself ever hope to go diving, when it is so expensive?

We discussed various options, from local resorts offering special programs for local youth to get to learn to dive to getting a set of community-managed masks and snorkels so that anyone could borrow them for the day. But the reality is that scuba diving is a very expensive activity that is far beyond the budgets of most people in the coastal communities in the Philippines.

There were no easy answers. But people were so appreciative of having their eyes opened to the wonders in their own front yards.

[academyadventures]

Connecting Filipino Teachers to Marine Biodiversity and Sustainability

We’ve completed two outreach events we’ve organized as part of the 2015 Philippines Verde island Passage expedition. It has been a really remarkable experience getting to connect with local Filipinos to educate them about marine biodiversity and environmental sustainability.

Our first outreach event was for a group of about 60 high school teachers at the Puerto Galera National High School. Although they all lived and taught not very far from the ocean, they learned a lot about the marine life in their local area, from tunicates to barnacles to nudibranch.

Our “habitat in a bucket” activity had them occupied for a long time, as they inquired into the relationships among the sand, rock, coral, seaweed, algae, and marine animals.

Getting to meet and talk with both American and Filipino scientists was also a high point of the outreach. Dr. Bob von Syoc impressed them with his knowledge of barnacles. Dr. Sarah Cohen shared her love of the tiny marine animals called tunicates. And Filipino scientists Jenire Miravite and Joseph Comendador shared their personal scientific interests (marine biology and sea sponges) and brought important local perspectives.

At the end of the teacher outreach, the educators shared what their major takeaways were from the training.  Several talked about different lessons that they planned on doing in their classrooms, from bringing in local specimens to doing scientific sketching to encouraging more sustainable practices in their schools. One teacher moved us all with his impassioned question, “Why is it that foreigners come to the Philippines and get so inspired that they create a Philippine aquarium exhibit, but we Filipinos have not done the same for ourselves?”

It was really amazing seeing these teachers so inspired by the biodiversity in their own backyard. We left them with USB drives with our lessons, paper handouts, and internet links. But most of all I hope that we left them with the mental tools and emotional motivation to improve their practice as educators, and impact their students’ lives dramatically.

[academyadventures]

VIP Outreach Team Activate!

Today is the first of four outreach events that Meg Burke, Lindzy Bivings and I will be leading all around the Batangas area. I’m nervous and excited about sharing about science, biodiversity, and sustainability for people on local communities in the Philippines!

Our first stop today is a training for about 60 teachers at the Puerto Galera National High School, not far from our dive resort. We’ve got a full day of action planned for the educators, including a coral sketching activity, examining a “habitat in a bucket”, doing a rapid trash assessment of the local area, meeting some of our scientists participating in the expedition, and showing off a few live specimens for them.

Last night, we collected several items from the beach to use during our outreaches, including a pailful of dead coral, some rocks with algae and small animals living on them, and a beautiful assortment of sea stars. It was a lot of fun just wading around in the water at night with flashlights looking for marine life. So many neat fish, eel, sea urchins, and more are active at night!

Over the next days we’ll be doing outreaches in the communities of Verde Island, San Pascual (200 participants!), and Lobo. I hear that we’ll have a mixture of teachers, students, local officials, and the general public. Should be really interesting!

[academyadventures]

Incredible Coral Reef and the Academy Aquarium

Working at the Cal Academy, I have spent a good amount of time in our aquarium, particularly our main setpiece, the giant Philippines coral tank. I must admit I have wondered if the sheer diversity and density of life in our tank actually represents what you would encounter here in the Philippines.

Having done several dives now in the Verde Island Passage area, I can now testify that the actual coral reefs here in the Philippines ARE as colorful, diverse, and magnificent as our tank back at the Academy. The GoPro can not capture the brilliant colors, textures, and movement of all the marine life in even a small area of the reef here. But these videos give you a flavor of what you would see.

I can’t even imagine the work that it took to recreate this awesome spectacle back in California at the Steinhart Aquarium. But I am even more grateful that I work at the Academy, where we can bring these truly breathtaking places and make them available for everyone to encounter up close. I have newfound respect for Bart Shepherd and the rest of the talented aquarium team at the Academy.

[academyadventures]

Rich and Meg Hard at Work

Here’s Meg Burke and Rich Mooi, two of the main organizers of the 2015 Verde Island Passage expedition, hard at work. As you can see, Rich is always ready for action!

[academyadventures]

Cool Specimens in the VIP Makeshift Lab

As I mentioned in a previous post, we’ve got a really neat makeshift lab that we’ve set up in the dining area of the Atlantis Beach Resort. I did a little walk through and spotted these cool specimens that were recently collected.

Kelly Markello was working on this beautiful echinoderm. It appears to be leeching dye into the alcohol it’s preserved in.

This tunicate was collected by peeling it away from the coral it was attached to.

This valonia ventricosa, also known as a “sailor’s eyeball,”  was quite striking. The entire “eye” is a single cell, one of the largest single cells known to science!

This lovely wrasse was collected by the fish team. The photo doesn’t quite capture his beautiful colors and patterns.

Every day, nearly every hour, there are fascinating new specimens that our scientists are bringing in.