Communicating Science

Critical to the success of our science endeavors is effective communications to build support for the research and then to share research results. We do this by maintaining an ongoing dialogue with fishermen, environmental organizations, coastal communities and Congress and through broader public outreach and education to students, teachers and parents. Such interactions go a long way in promoting mutual trust and respect, a hallmark of Alaska fisheries management.

2016 Highlights:

Stakeholder Engagement Highlights

A big part of our job each year is communicating with the fishing industry, environmental community members and others interested in our research through in-person meetings, collaborative research, phone conversations, office visits, conferences and the Council process. Center staff also work closely with Alaska Native organizations and communities to discuss the rationale for aerial and vessel surveys of bearded seals, ringed seals, polar bears, fish and crab stocks and plankton communities. The goal is to maintain a dialogue and identify ways to minimize disturbance on marine life and Alaska Native hunters and fishermen. To help with this effort, we produced a comprehensive map of all our marine mammal surveys and research projects, posted it on our website and shared it with 426 Alaska Native coastal organizations, agencies, and corporations. (https://archive.fisheries.noaa.gov/afsc/datamaps/nmmlresearch/index.html).

Social Media and Web-Based Platforms

The use of social media and web-based platforms is helping us reach remote villages and Native communities throughout Alaska and people around the world with news and information about our research. There were more than 32,000 page views of our science blog, ???Dispatches in the Field,??? and over 890,000 social media impressions generated. We conducted four Tweet Chats on Twitter this year on topics ranging from why we study fish stomachs/diets to research that is enabling the cruise ship industry to visit glacial fjords while minimizing disturbance on harbor seals. We also held three Google Hangouts with classrooms in Anchorage and St. Paul, Alaska, to engage students in our research. This year, we made publicly accessible, through our website, two new databases that track long-term diet data for key Alaska marine fish species and environmental conditions affecting Alaska marine ecosystems. These data can be used by scientists, students and teachers to conduct their own studies and experiments.

K-12 Students and Teachers

We reached over 10,000 students and teachers through programs that bring students into our labs for field trips, and take scientists into classrooms. Our long-term educational programs provide a pipeline to keep students engaged in science from kindergarten through high school and beyond. At our Auke Bay Laboratories, we do this during our annual Sea Week, Sun to Sea Camp, and Southeast Alaska Regional Science Fair activities. In Kodiak, Alaska, we reach students through a partnership with the local community and school, the Ocean Science Discovery Program. Scientists visit Anchorage-area schools each January during the Alaska Marine Science Symposium. We also reach out to Alaska Native communities through events like Bering Sea Days, a school-based event in the Pribilof Islands, which brings scientists, students, teachers and the community together for interactive science learning. Other Alaska Native communities reached in 2016 included Metlakatla and Yakutat.

General Education

This year our scientists and educators reached over 33,700 people through community festivals, summer camps, lab tours, events at museums and aquariums, and public seminars. Our Kodiak Laboratory hosted over 15,000 visitors this year, many of them cruise ship visitors from around the world. We also participate each year in Seattle???s Fall Fishermen???s Festival and Pacific Marine Expo, as well as Kodiak???s COMFISH and Juneau???s Ted Stevens Day. NOAA Science Camp, a summer science camp for middle and high schoolers now in its 14th year, provided hands-on learning experiences for over 130 youth this year. We also share our science with large audiences at Seattle Aquarium and Pacific Science Center events.

Publications

This year Center scientists authored 128 research publications in peer-reviewed journals as well as produced numerous in-house technical and program reports. To view our publications, visit the Alaska Fisheries Science Center website.

Video and Broadcasts

We are exploring new ways to reach audiences through video and live online broadcasts. We conducted NOAA???s first live YouTube broadcast in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries??? Ocean Media Center and NOAA Research???s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory to talk about our partnership using autonomous, wind- and solar-powered vessels, Saildrones, to study the Bering Sea ecosystem. To date, over 3,000 peopled have viewed this broadcast. The video ???Why the Little Fish Matter,??? featuring our research on the Arctic nearshore environment, was shown at 11 film festivals.