PTMSC awards scholarship to PTHS student

Alethea Westlund

PTMSC is proud to announce that volunteer Alethea Westlund was selected as the first recipient of the new PTMSC annual scholarship for graduating high school seniors. This $500 award was made possible by generous donors to the PTMSC scholarship fund.

Alethea plans to complete her associate's degree at Peninsula College in the coming year and then pursue a 4-year degree in Marine Biology or Environmental Science. She believes that becoming more educated about the fragility of the environment will prepare her to help protect it.

Alethea has been an active volunteer at PTMSC for over 4 years and has donated over 300 hours to working in exhibits as a docent, assisting with summer camps, and other education programs. She believes that interacting with the PTMSC visitors has given her confidence in teaching and public speaking.   Alethea recently became part of the Citizen Science team at PTMSC when she partnered with us to complete her senior project. Working over 80 hours for her project, she combined her knowledge of eelgrass beds with SCUBA diving skills to successfully map the eelgrass bed north of the PTMSC pier. She hopes that other high school students or community members will be able to use her protocol and data to track future changes in the eelgrass bed.

Happily, Alethea plans to continue volunteering at PTMSC over the next year. Good luck, Alethea, and thank you for all your dedication to conserving the marine environment! And thanks to staff member Jamie Landry for serving as Althea's mentor.

-The PTMSC family