Street Smarts: Ocean Acidification from Pop-Up Science on Vimeo with Washington State Ferries, Seattle-Bainbridge Island.
Street Smarts by Pop-Up Science
Part improv, part educational outreach, Pop-Up Science Street Smarts Series are live, impromptu demonstrations by local scientists that appear in very unconventional places. They represent a new, experimental form of science education and outreach aimed at opening up “surprising scenes of science” for public interaction and discussion.
On September 13, 2015, Pop-Up Science, a Seattle-based pop-up museum, brought “ocean science to the ocean.”
Founder, Nina Arens, along with oceanographers Rachel Vander Giessen, Allison Lee, and film crew extraordinaire Alex Ellis, Darcy Moynahan and William Pierce, stormed the unsuspecting passengers of Washington State Ferries with microscopes, maps, and regional oceanographers.
“It’s easy to think of the ocean as a big vast body of empty water that doesn’t need much attention. The ocean naturally acts as Earth’s sink for carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, helping to keep the balance of carbon that has existed in the ecosystem in flux for over millions of years. But over the last 250 years, that CO2 balance has gotten really out of whack—and the ocean needs our help….We wanted to give Seattle an opportunity to learn about ocean acidification and phytoplankton so that they might consider how they can best help the Puget Sound.”
This event was a great success with passengers on the ferry and got quick press with the Bainbridge Island residents as well as tweets from the Washington State Ferries Twitter feed.
Pop-Up Science is planning for more impromptu Street Smarts events so be sure to follow them on their website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @popupsci.
For more in-depth information on the ocean acidification issue, the science, and educational resources, check out these external websites:
Washington Ocean Acidification Center
Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS)
Applied Physics Laboratory – Ferries for Science
To read more about who the awesome contributors to this video were, click here and you can also check out an interview done with Nina for this website here.
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