PTMSC Blog : July 2012

Monday, July 30, 2012

Imagining the next 30

When Judy and Libby founded the Marine Science Center in 1982, they had no idea their dream would manifest so concretely, last for 30 years or have the impacts and the durability PTMSC is know for. Let’s imagine the next 30 years, because in a blink of the proverbial eye we’ll reach 2042.

Will our touch tanks teach people how to ‘farm’ food, as well as teach about marine life? Will we be growing algae in our lab to demonstrate carbon sequestration? Will we learn to communicate with whales?

How will schools change? Will community kids:

Process that algae at PTMSC on Monday?
Learn navigation and vessel handling on Tuesday since goods are being moved around by flex-fueled and sailing vessels?
Work the land on Wednesday growing food year around and helping watersheds support a diversity of species?
Focus on health and wellness on Thursdays by helping in health care facilities and mentoring with physicians of all disciplines;
and on Fridays - contemplate, discuss, debate and create?
Guess I better add Saturdays for civic affairs!

Who knows what our world will be like in 30 years?

We’ll keep on target, ensuring that the Science Center remains an integral part of the Salish Sea community, a hub for learning and for modeling sustainable behaviors … a place where old and young share, talk and make a difference so that orcas and humans continue to co-evolve in the Salish Sea.

- Anne Murphy, Executive Director

This is the final of our 30 stories celebrating 30 years. We hope these stories have illuminated some of our history and sparked your imagination for the future. We sure have had fun reminiscing and looking at old pictures.

We invite you to make a contribution of $30 to celebrate 30 years, or increase your impact and give more. All funds support the Future Fund to keep the PTMSC going strong. Donate online or call (360) 385-5582, ext. 104, or send a check to 532 Battery Way, Port Townsend, WA 98368.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Coming Soon – Hope’s Story

a sneak peak at the new exhibit scheduled to open September 29

In yesterday’s blog you learned how the community helped assemble Hope’s skeleton. Now you must be wondering - when can you see it displayed it in its full splendor and learn her story?

The answer is very soon!

September 29 is opening day for a new exhibit we’re calling Learning From Orcas – The Story of Hope. We want you to be surprised so I’m not divulging too much, but suffice it to say you will be moved.

Her story has joyful elements and deeply troubling elements. PTMSC has moved into taking a stronger advocacy and awareness-building position for Salish Sea health largely because of what we have learned from working with Hope.

As we look forward to our next 30 years, we realize that the time is now to make a difference and we want all our guests to know they can have a role in turning the tide on the declining health of our marine waters. This exhibit will help you find your role.

- Anne Murphy, Executive Director

This is one of 30 reasons to give $30 to celebrate 30 years. Or increase your impact and give more. All funds support the Future Fund to keep the PTMSC going strong. Donate online or call (360) 385-5582, ext. 104, or send a check to 532 Battery Way, Port Townsend, WA 98368.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Acquiring an Orca Skeleton

CA-189, the female transient orca that stranded and died near Dungeness Spit in January 2002, has been on quite a journey. The PTMSC has shared that journey with her. We helped dig up her buried bones in 2008, watched them leave for the Seattle NOAA facility for soaking, and then retrieved them again for further cleaning in 2009.

Lee Post, aka “the bone man,” a skeleton specialist from Homer, Alaska, had been contacted long before and was offering detailed guidance since the start of the Orca Project. When he arrived to begin the articulation in January 2011, a group of more than 25 dedicated PTMSC volunteers, staff members and a large supporting cast of community members, was ready and eager to work with him. Thanks to their combined efforts, Hope’s skeleton was completed in less than four weeks.

The preparation of Hope’s bones and their articulation represents a significant achievement for PTMSC and its community. In most museums, an articulation work space would have been closed to the public, with professionals assembling the skeleton. In contrast, PTMSC opened its doors and invited volunteers to join the project, regardless of their background. They brought their respective life skills as well as enthusiasm: artists, citizen scientists, writers, photographers, welders, boat riggers and more. Lee’s informal teaching and problem-solving style encouraged volunteers to join him in tackling the many challenges that arose during the work.

By Libby Palmer (an excerpt from the Fall 2011 Octopress)

To learn more about Hope and the Orca Project click here.

This is one of 30 reasons to give $30 to celebrate 30 years. Or increase your impact and give more. All funds support the Future Fund to keep the PTMSC going strong. Donate online or call (360) 385-5582, ext. 104, or send a check to 532 Battery Way, Port Townsend, WA 98368.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Opening of the Foss Maritime Discovery Lab

The Foss Maritime Discovery Lab opened April 9, 2005 in the Marine Exhibit located in the southern end of the exhibit and was named after its lead funding provider, Foss Maritime.

“I look forward to the opening of the new Discovery Lab as Foss wishes continued great success in making the PTMSC an outstanding model for science education excellence,” said Gilbert Graham, vice president for Foss Maritime at the time of the opening.

Volunteer Karen DeLorenzo
works on a research project
in the Discovery Lab.

Anne Murphy, PTMSC’s executive director had championed the Discovery Lab as an essential resource for student education and added, “Opening the Foss Maritime Discovery Lab is a source of tremendous pride and fulfillment for our organization. It’s a dream we’ve been planning and refining for several years. It’s the only lab that we’re aware of in western Washington, where students and community members have access to such a wide array of research tools. We’re very proud to introduce it to the community.”

The lab continues to be used for research, environmental monitoring and culturing projects. Over the years since its opening, kids and adults have deepened their marine science learning experiences through projects conducted in cooperation and collaboration with regional scientists and laboratories.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Legacy of Volunteers at the PTMSC

The Star Docents of PTMSC at the Volunteer Enrichment
Series Potluck with AmeriCorps Jamie Landry (center)
From left: Betty Petrie, Jan North, Moh O’Hanlon,
and Alethea Westlund.

If you asked any staff member, current or past, “What do the volunteers at PTMSC mean to you?” you would surely hear a deeply personal answer. We all know what it means to volunteer our time to one cause or another—however when someone steps foot into the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, the meaning of a volunteer experience is surely changed. Whether you are helping campers seine for fish at the Fort Worden beaches, sampling our waters for harmful algal blooms, inspiring visitors in our Marine and Natural History Exhibits, or responding to stranded marine mammal calls, the opportunities to contribute to the mission of PTMSC are endless.

In order to celebrate and strengthen our volunteer program, PTMSC held its first-ever Volunteer Enrichment Series this past spring. Over the course of 2 ½ months, volunteers were educated, engaged, and challenged through interactive sessions on topics of interpretation. They discovered how to find their voice—how to inspire conservation in meaningful and personal ways. I had the pleasure of leading this series and was fortunate enough to see firsthand, just how dedicated our volunteers are to helping us fulfill our mission. Although I have only been around for a short while, that was all it took for me to develop a genuine appreciation of our wonderful volunteers.

People from all walks of life dedicate their minds, hearts, and spirits to Inspiring Conservation of the Salish Sea. This organization could never stand as strongly as it does, it certainly would not have transcended the past 30 years, and would not be able to move into the future with passion and inspiration if it weren’t for truly irreplaceable and invaluable volunteers. A special thanks you all of you who volunteer from the PTMSC Staff.

By Jamie Landry, 2012 AmeriCorps

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Opening the Natural History Exhibit

The collaboration with the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture began when I found the whale skull in 1991. A very long time passed before the renovated pier building (now the Marine Exhibit), and the newly remodeled Natural History opened—10 years to be exact.

Cutting the ribbon to the new NHE in 2001 (l to r),
Cleave Pennix, Director of Washington State Parks,
Rachel Gaspers, PTMSC Board President,
Roxanna Augustiny, Acting Director of the
Burke Museum and John Begley, CEO of
the Port Townsend Paper Company.

Bringing the ideas together and making them into reality is a story full of highs and lows, confrontations and soul-searching, but our undisputed love of the PTMSC prevailed.

I worked three terms as the board president, alongside an extremely hard-working, dedicated board and staff, full of all-stars and people with vision. Keeping the idea of building the NHE alive when faced with all the realities involved, made that day at the end of September 2001, a beautiful miracle.

The little whale who started it all is now displayed quietly in the Ancient Whale case, just to the right as you enter the NHE. Come see this piece of PTMSC’s history.

By Rachel Gaspers, former PTMSC Board President

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Port Townsend Bay Monitoring Project

Students on the Monty Python after

a rain cover was made for it.

Back in 1986, Judy and her friend Debra decided to start a project that would get local kids helping to monitor the water quality in Port Townsend Bay. They already had a boat—a scientist friend had donated the vessel Monty Python to PTMSC. Debra was a water quality engineer, and Judy reluctantly agreed to be the boat’s skipper until a real skipper took the helm. The Port Townsend Bay Monitoring Project, or MOPO, was born.

With six high school students in tow, they tried out many things that first year—sampling water from one end of PT Bay to the other, doing the first fish trawls, and testing bottom samples for contamination—tiny amphipods were placed in the sediment to see if it they died. (The test was tricky to do and results weren’t very clear.) Volunteers were involved too, monitoring beaches for change and surveying eelgrass beds.

MOPO continued for 14 years. After the first year, MOPO began working with all of Port Townsend’s 8^th graders. Students got some in-class training and then they each got a turn going on a sampling trip on the Monty Python. When it was their turn they were often annoyed they had to put on baggy rain gear and wear thick life jackets, but once on the water nobody complained.

Over the years they measured dissolved oxygen, salinity and temperature at four monitoring sites and recorded the variety of animals they sifted from the sediment at each site. But the best part was that so many students—around 100 each year—got out on the water to work as scientists for a day and learn what good water quality is all about—and why it’s so important.

By Judy D’Amore, co-founder of PTMSC

Monday, July 23, 2012

“Look, a Shrimp!”—Driving an ROV

Students from Kit Pennell’s Chimacum School class

are on Jim Norris’ boat, the Mary Beth, letting out

or bringing in the ROV cable, which was an

important job because it was necessary to

keep it loose yet not let it drag on the bottom

Excitement ran high as middle and high school students scanned the screen for animals picked up on camera more than 150 feet below the surface. Another student steered the remotely operated vehicle along the sea floor. These students were getting to do something few people their age have ever done before—use a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to conduct their own research on deepwater marine life in northern Puget Sound.

Co-founders Judy D’Amore and Libby Palmer coordinated the ROV program in 2003, which gave about 100 middle and high school students from five school districts the chance to take part in a research cruise near the San Juan Islands.

The centerpiece of this unusual program was a research cruise in which they became operators of the ROV. Owned by Friday Harbor Labs, it was a piece of high-tech equipment capable of traveling to depths far beyond the reach of scuba divers. Equipped with a high-resolution video camera and capable of moving in all directions, it was operated by a driver at the surface, using a set of controls that would intimidate anyone but a teen.

Before their cruise date, each group of students spent weeks planning and designing a research project they would carry out on their cruise. When they boarded the vessel they quickly got to work, running their own study and taking turns driving the ROV. Students quickly mastered the controls and were soon using the ROV to explore a site being considered as a possible marine reserve in Skagit County.

At the end of the year, four of the six student groups, none of whom had met before, came together to present the results of their ROV investigations to one another. Excitement ran high, but not just among the students. Also present were the collaborating partners: scientists, teachers and marine educators from two universities, one state agency and a non-profit marine education center, none of whom had ever worked on a project like this before. The adult collaborators had come to see what ideas a group of dynamic secondary science teachers would come up with if given the chance to use an ROV for a day--ideas for enlivening their science classrooms and bringing the world of marine science research alive for their students.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Collecting our Marine Animals for the Exhibit

Every spring, the staff and volunteers at the PTMSC begin collecting animals for the tanks in the Marine Exhibit so the public can learn about them up close throughout the spring, summer and fall seasons. It’s an exciting and exhilarating time for everyone. Here’s an inside look at a small part of the process:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJZjFy4Qg2s&feature=BFa&list=FLkLknzBYXCa5Q6q_a3KFvGg

Saturday, July 21, 2012

PTMSC’s First Hydrophone

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in 1982 or 1983, we thought it would be interesting to have a hydrophone placed in the water off the dock, so that we could listen to orcas or other marine mammals. We mentioned the idea to two anonymous friends of PTMSC who had extensive experience with the US Navy. It didn’t take long for them to magically locate a “spare” hydrophone. All they asked was that we not talk about it publicly and that we meet them in some shopping center somewhere around Poulsbo or Bremerton. When Henry and Libby arrived at the rendezvous spot, they were handed an ordinary brown cardboard box rather quickly and encouraged to drive home immediately.

In the box was the hydrophone and pre-amplifier needed to make the sounds audible inside the Center. During the next few weeks, extensive communications occurred between our benefactors and us, along with Washington State Parks. One of our faithful volunteers had good connections in the boating community and she was able to arrange for a vessel and crew and a team of divers to install it, fixed to a concrete slab straight off the dock, under 40 feet of water--all at no charge.

For weeks and months after that, we listened and listened but never heard any sounds of life. But we did hear lots of boat noises. Curious to see what we were hearing, we "restored" one of the ground floor windows so we could see out. With time the sounds of boats grew faint and finally disappeared. We realized that the normal flow of sand offshore had completely buried the hydrophone and its concrete platform. And there it sits still - somewhere – 30 years later.

Happily, however, we now have a working hydrophone in the Marine Exhibit that‘s used to listen to orca sounds and picks up vessel traffic traveling in the Strait.

Friday, July 20, 2012

In 2003, Seattle’s Burke Museum Partnered with PTMSC

On January 8,2003, the directors of the Port Townsend Marine Science Center and The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle signed a Partnership Agreement.

Although the organizations had enjoyed a long-standing relationship of cooperation and collaboration, Directors George MacDonald (The Burke Museum) and Anne Murphy (PTMSC) decided to move forward with a formal agreement. A key element of the agreement was membership reciprocity, allowing members of each organization to have full member benefits at the partner organization. This included, and still does, free admission to exhibits, discounts at gift shops, discounted admission to education programs such as lectures, workshops, special events, residential programs and cruises.

The Burke Museum has offered the PTMSC specimens appropriate for display in their Natural History Exhibit and advice/assistance on fabrication of casts of specimens over the years.

As a demonstration of their intentions, Burke Museum curators Liz Nesbitt and Ron Eng presented an exquisite cast of a fossil salmon to Anne Murphy at the agreement signing. This is on permanent display in the Natural History Exhibit. The original fossil of a Sockeye Salmon was found on the Olympic Peninsula in 2002 and is believed to be one million years old.

George MacDonald said about the significance of the agreement, “This offers us something so different – an interface with the marine environment. It’s a cross-link to encompass many people, allowing them to see the two facilities as complementary in every way.” Anne Murphy added, “It’s an honor to be recognized by the Burke Museum as a partner and to work with their staff. I applaud their vision for extending their reach to residents of the Olympic Peninsula.”

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Finding the First Whale Skull Fossil

Finding the skull parts and teeth of the little ancient whale proved to be more than serendipitous—it was the defining event that led to the Natural History Exhibit being built.

Diane Boardman Gusset (who had been with the PTMSC from its inception) and I (getting there a few years later), joined my husband Joe on a fly fishing trip so we could check the road cuts along the west end river bank while looking for fossils.

It was Diane's astuteness that had her recognizing something unusual and interesting

in the rocks. Upon further exploration, we discovered it was a skull. I hauled it to the Burke Museum of Natural History in Seattle to get it identified. This began the collaboration between our two organizations that resulted in the Natural History Exhibit we see today and our reciprocity agreement.

By Rachel Gaspers, volunteer and former PTMSC Board Chair

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

“Docks Project” for Quilcene 8th graders

Usually when someone thinks of a dock, they think of a place where you tie up a boat or cast a fishing line. But in 2007, the 8^th graders in Larry McKeehan’s science classes at Quilcene Middle School learned to view docks differently, thanks to a science program called the Northern Hood Canal Dock Monitoring Project or fondly known as the “Docks Project.”

In the Docks Project, middle school students learned about what goes on underneath the docks in our community by studying water quality, plankton and marine invertebrates. Students did research and experiments about marine water quality and factors contributing to the recurring low dissolved oxygen events in Hood Canal.

Classroom work complemented dock monitoring in the field so students could participate in investigative science, increasing their understanding of water quality in relation to local geology, currents, climate and weather changes, and shoreline land use. During dock monitoring, they looked for invasive species like tunicates and become aware of the threat they pose to nearshore habitats in the Puget Sound area.

The project was done in partnership with the Port of Port Townsend, Jefferson County Soil Conservation District, Jefferson County Health Department and the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program.

By Judy D’Amore, educator for the project

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Rhody Parade with Mammoth

In 2000, the NHE building was an abandoned, poorly lit unused space with a rotten floor. But we were in the process of planning its future exhibits and had our minds full of geology, glaciers and mammoths. Several of us thought it might be fun to have a giant mammoth in the Rhody Parade but we didn’t have the vaguest idea of how to make one. Enter Lisa Bottomley Mabelle, paper artist extraordinaire. One quick brainstorming session led to a small sketch which grew and grew and grew.

With the help of donated brown wrapping paper from the PT Paper Company, many volunteers highly experienced in tearing paper and lots of ingenious structure-building by Lisa, a magnificent mammoth emerged that fit perfectly over Richard Inman’s van. Since the mammoth “hair” obscured the van’s windshield, driving it in the parade required navigators walking on both sides of the van, to make sure no one was run over.

After the parade, the mammoth was fed into a bonfire, to make it truly extinct.

--Libby Palmer

Monday, July 16, 2012

What a freezer could tell

Biology has a certain smell. In the case of marine biology it’s a very distinctive smell indeed—salty, fishy and sometimes overly pungent, in the case of marine mammal parts or the unique scent of low tide.

When you crack the freezer open at PTMSC, you are sometimes hit with all of these smells at once. Our freezers serve many purposes—they hold clams, krill, herring and squid for feeding our animals, whole tilapia used for fish printing, plankton samples collected by our citizen scientists and a bunch of rather unusual specimens stored for various purposes. There is a set of baleen plates from Spirit, the gray whale on display in NHE. A wide variety of fish specimens stored for later drying and use as educational tools. A river otter, Northern fur seal, and several small birds await the opportunity to be cleaned up and shown in a display or class. Two seal pups are on hold for future trainings on marine mammal strandings.

Last year we stored a whole orca flipper until we could to have it scanned to accurately map out its bones for re-articulation. In past years it was the rare Lancet fish that washed ashore, Humboldt squid collected by local fisherman, and an occasional dog fish shark that was saved for a dissection demonstration.

If those freezers could talk, they would tell the story of questions wanting answers and riddles waiting for their turn to be solved. This is the central idea of marine science—that the questions are more plentiful than the answers. Answering these questions is often a hands-on (and potentially smelly) investigation—which all starts in the freezer.

By Chrissy McLean

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Home Crew

For as long as the Marine Exhibit has been in operation it has needed people to keep the tanks clean, the animals fed and basically to offer TLC. Over the years, the team who performed these tasks was lovingly dubbed “Home Crew.”

These are the folks who haven’t been afraid to take the plunge (with their hands, that is!) and help with the care and feeding of all the wonderful sea creatures living in the Marine Exhibit touch pools and tanks on the Pier at Fort Worden State Park.

Ask any volunteer who’s helped on Home Crew and you’ll hear stories! We’re hoping some of you will add them below as Comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4O_t_3Duys&list=FLkLknzBYXCa5Q6q_a3KFvGg&index=4&feature=plpp_video

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