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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOASST Internship1. Name of the project: Dead bird citizen science for youth community members: an internship program with COASST 2. Lead organization and Contact: Julia K. Parrish, Executive Director, COASST jparrish@uw.edu 206-221-5787 University of Washington Box 355020 Seattle, WA 98195 3. Start and end dates for your project: March 2024 – June 2025 4. Deliverables: 4 internship opportunities (Recruitment begins March 2024; 4 x ~80 hour internships from May 2024-2025) 2 intern/community training workshops for the COASST survey program (May 2024 and May 2025) Final presentations by interns (at workshops in May 2025) Final report by COASST (June 2025) 5. Project staff: Dr. Julia Parrish is the founder and Executive Director of COASST. She has over 30 years of teaching, program development and marine science experience, and has trained hundreds of COASST volunteers. Parrish will supervise the project, including budgetary responsibility. Ms. Jackie Lindsey is the COASST Science Coordinator. With a graduate degree in marine ecology and 6 years of experience working at the public interface of conservation programs, Lindsey has developed science-based curricula, and a variety of outreach and communication materials. She will interface with partners and provide MRC reporting. Ms. Allie Brown is the COASST Participant and Intern Coordinator. With experience working directly with the public, Brown has developed a variety of outreach materials, and delivered hands-on trainings. She will spearhead communication, supervise interns in partnership with teachers/in- community mentors, and schedule/host trainings. 6. Partners: Alice Ryan is a trained COASST participant and educator at the Quileute Tribal School. Alice supervised high school students in the pilot year of this project (2022-23), and will serve as a COASST liaison (and MRC mentor) for interns based in La Push, WA. John Hunter is a trained COASST participant who has worked on previous COASST MRC projects with local Forks School District students, and served in an advisory role in the pilot year of this internship. He will serve as liaison for any interns and teachers based in Forks, WA, and connect the program with the MRC and NMEA marine educators. 7. Geographic Area: COASST currently supports data collection sites within Clallam and Jefferson counties, both on the outer coast and the western mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Figure 1. COASST beached bird monitoring sites along the north outer coast of Washington and Strait of Juan de Fuca. Points in blue are currently assigned to survey teams for monthly surveys, while green points haven’t been monitored in several years. Starred locations along the coastline indicate potential locations for interns, located at easily accessible points near coastal communities. 8. Permits: COASST holds a Scientific Research and Collecting Permit from Olympic National Park, enabling COASST participants to survey coastal beaches parkwide. Sites within the Makah Reservation are surveyed by tribal members and employees, and OCNMS employees and contractors with permission in accordance with COASST’s MOU with the tribe. Sites within the Quileute lands are approved for survey by residents only (including students). An MOU with the Quileute Tribe is in process, with support and guidance by Alice Ryan. 9. Project Narrative a) Abstract This project expands and deepens an established citizen science program with roots along the outer coast of Washington – the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST). The proposed project will connect youth in small coastal communities - particularly along the outer coast of Washington in Jefferson and Clallam counties - with the opportunity to gain experience conducting environmental research as part of COASST’s beached bird survey program. Following the model established in the pilot year of this program, two teams of two, senior-level high school students/recent high school graduates will adopt a local beach and survey monthly, aided by their local mentor/teacher. They will receive training at the beginning of the year by COASST staff, check in remotely with their COASST mentor each month post-survey, tour COASST/University of Washington mid-year, and present the results of their surveys at the end of their internship at a training event hosted by COASST staff in their community. Long-term sustainability of the COASST dataset on the outer Washington coast depends on strong connections to community. Intern participation in the program will provide: 1) a concrete opportunity for local youth to explore a STEM career path; 2) revitalized COASST connections with local teachers and community members; and 3) a continuation of the COASST beached bird dataset, which continues to be the metric by which local and global environmental changes (including the impacts of changing sea surface temperature, oil spills, or harmful algal blooms) may be measured. b) Background The Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) is a 23-year-old citizen science program primarily targeting adult learners who live, work, and/or recreate in coastal communities throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. At present, ~700 coastal citizens collect data monthly on ~450 beaches from the northern coast of California to the Chukchi Sea in Alaska, with over 100 current participants at 46 sites along the outer coast of Washington State (~400 people and 215 sites in WA overall). In NW Washington, COASST has engaged with coastal communities for nearly two decades through the beached bird survey program – training citizen scientists to monitor the health of the ecosystem through monthly surveys for beachcast seabird carcasses. COASST enriches the connection between residents of coastal communities and their local marine environment by strengthening their passion for nature, sense of stewardship, and desire to be part of science tracking these environmental issues. The principal use of the COASST dataset has been to establish a baseline, or what is "normal" on the beach. With these patterns in hand, COASST has been able to document a wide range of mortality events along the outer coast of Washington, and then work with scientists, resource managers, and community members to discover the forcing factors behind these events. As a result, COASST and colleagues have published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature on the impacts of climate warming (Parrish et al. 2007), harmful algal blooms (Jones et al. 2017), and north Pacific marine heatwaves (Jones et al. 2023, Jones et al. 2018, Piatt et al. 2020). Coastal communities on the outer Washington coast are directly experiencing the effects of a long list of environmental issues: a warming ocean and atmosphere, ocean acidification, range shifts of native and invasive species, harmful algal blooms, loss of iconic fisheries such as salmon or crab, coastal erosion, oil spills, offshore wind development plans – all of which have social, economic, and cultural factors at play. Coastal community members have proven eager to participate in a program that directly engages them in the rigorous, hands-on environmental science and stewardship. The Problem Recent global events (pandemic, societal upheaval) have highlighted the inequities inherent in our country’s ‘ivory tower’ model of research. COASST’s citizen science program is committed to long-term, place based relationships with each community where participants survey beaches for the program, and we seek funding in order to address those inequities within our own membership by providing support to the communities where it is most needed. Small coastal communities in remote locations are uniquely situated to collect rigorous citizen science data, and have historically provided (through COASST) the only available datasets for regions where large seabird mortality events have taken place (Jones et al. 2017; Jones et al. 2018). However, the members of these communities are not typical COASST participants – they may not have the opportunity to spend time volunteering for a citizen science project – a successful model in larger coastal communities like Ocean Shores, WA. A Solution Citizen science has been increasingly adopted in K-12 formal education as one way for students to engage more directly in science that is meaningful to them. In the past, the COASST program has supported individual requests from COASST participants who also happen to be educators, supplying them with teaching resources and trainings as they incorporate COASST surveys into their classroom. These teachers live in very different remote coastal communities (from Brevig Mission, AK to La Push, WA) but they all incorporate COASST surveys into their classroom for the same reasons: as a hands-on science option for their students, and as a way for young members of tribal and coastal communities to connect with their environment and the practice of stewardship. The surveys are also offered as an example of STEM career pathways that provide opportunities to return to (and work in) local communities after college. This proposal aims to formalize the partnership between COASST and coastal youth educators by offering a paid internship opportunity for students at the pre-college level (either in the final year of high-school or immediately after graduation). This model resulted in a successful internship program completed by two young women in the 2022-23 year. The COASST beached bird survey module features repeated sampling to hone skills, and to gain awareness, knowledge and understanding at multiple scales (individual item found; patterns on a specific beach; patterns across the program). Through this internship, participants will learn standardized survey design and data collection as well as use of the metric system, measurement techniques and the interaction between scale and precision. By submitting their data online, they will also reinforce computer skills and solidify responsible communication practices necessary for future employment. And by connecting regularly with COASST research staff they will have the opportunity to engage with a STEM career path and a research university, while simultaneously deepening their understanding of the patterns of environmental change in their hometown. At the end of their internship, they will work with the COASST program to summarize their experience participating in the COASST data collection program, and present their findings back to their local community. Interns will be hired in pairs in each community to ensure that best safety practices are followed while surveying outer coast beaches in all months of the year. (See potential survey locations in Geographic Area, Figure 1.) Surveys will last 3 hours on average, and will take place once per month (allowing for cancellations due to weather and/or safety issues). An additional time commitment will be required to attend in-community training workshops at the beginning and end of the internship, submit data either via online data portal or email, and travel to the University of Washington for a campus visit mid- internship. A local mentor (either local teacher or long-time COASST partner) will be paired with the students to offer support and recommendations as needed throughout the year. The mentor will not be required to accompany the interns on each survey, unless this is specifically requested by the interns and/or decided at the outset for a particular beach location. Mentors will be invited to all training workshops and meetings that are required for interns, but need not attend every event. They will be invited (and funded) to attend the University of Washington campus visit. And as key local resources they will be asked for advice in the organization, timing, and attendance list for in-community trainings at the beginning and end of the internship. In addition, quarterly communication between COASST staff (Brown) and mentors will ensure that the internship runs smoothly. In addition to the in-person training workshops at the beginning and end of the internship, and the campus visit mid-internship, COASST staff (Brown) will offer remote support for interns. Monthly virtual intern meetings will connect MRC interns to one another, to the COASST undergraduate internship team, and to the UW’s College of the Environment student ambassadors. Interns will also reflect on pieces of data they are collecting or their experience of the internship. Their responses will be compiled in final posters, as well as summarized in COASST’s final report to measure the success of the program. At the end of the internship COASST staff (Brown) will work with each intern team to summarize their internship for presentation back to their community. Attendees of this final workshop will include community members and local educators, with the interns serving as co-hosts and assistants during the workshop. (Note: if the internship is funded for a second year, attendees may also include students interested in applying for the next year’s internship. In the pilot year of the internship, the final workshop took place on the beach, with potential interns in attendance.) c) MRC Benchmarks This proposal addresses two of the performance benchmarks defined by the Coastal MRC Program Work Group: Sound Science and Education and Outreach. The proposed project specifically leverages a large citizen science project already established along the outer coast of Clallam and Jefferson counties and throughout coastal Washington: COASST. Data collected by COASST during the internship will be used like all other COASST data to inform science, resource management and the public about the health of the coastal marine environment. In addition, this project directly engages coastal residents in rigorous, hands-on environmental science and stewardship activities by training and employing budding community scientists through an internship program. d) Timeline Milestone Activity/Deliverable March 2024 begin search for interns, leveraging COASST partner/MRC mentor connections May 2024 complete hiring process and conduct initial training workshops in-community, including training for interns and interested community members May 2024-May 2025 (monthly) host interns at COASST virtual meetings to connect about survey challenges and submit reports of recent surveys July 2024 check in call with mentors/COASST staff October 2024 check in call with mentors/COASST staff January 2025 check in call with mentors/COASST staff March 2025 host interns and their mentors at UW for in-person tour of COASST/UW programs April 2025 check in call with mentors/COASST staff May 2025 host end-of-internship workshops in-community, including training for community members and poster display for interns. Final stipends paid out. Final report. e) Methods COASST research staff will host a 5-hour, in-person training workshop for the interns, their mentors and local community members (with permission) at the beginning of the internship period. At this first workshop, interns and community members will learn to conduct a standardized survey, document the conditions of the beach and any beached birds found, and measure/identify the birds using the COASST beached bird guide and toolkit. Interns will also receive their beach assignment, and conduct a practice survey with COASST staff and mentors. Survey protocols taught at these workshops are identical to the longstanding, rigorous data collection and documentation protocols of the COASST program. This will enable the data collected by interns and community members to directly contribute to the long-term dataset. At the end of the internship, interns will attend a second 5-hour, in person training workshop – this time as expert co-hosts/teaching assistants with COASST research staff. f) Extent/Impact COASST has gathered beached bird data for almost two decades, with a majority of effort along the outer coast of Washington State; we now possess high quality data on over 80,000 carcasses. These data allow us to explore spatial and temporal patterns of beaching, create a baseline (what's normal), and bound unusual and mass mortality events. Together with our partner science organizations (WDFW, NOAA, OCNMS, UW) we then work to uncover event causality. Some of this work has been published in the scientific literature (e.g., Jones et al. 2017) and other work has gone directly into natural resource management (e.g. CCIEA, ODFW Status Review of the Marbled Murrelet 2017), as well as reports directly to the NPC MRC (previous proposal, COASST 2018 ‘Life History and Death History’). This project will contribute a year of surveys at two beach locations (24 total surveys) in Washington State where the dataset is extremely valuable, but where there are often temporal or spatial gaps in data collection. In addition, the internship program itself will provide opportunities for 4 youth members of coastal communities to gain experience in hands-on environmental research that is directly related to the lands and waters where they live, and foster connections with university researchers to support potential future career paths in STEM fields. This project also provides a structure from which interns and their teacher/mentors may develop spinoff projects related to data collection on beached birds – providing additional opportunities to students beyond the activities of four interns conducting surveys. In the pilot year of the study, mentor Alice Ryan began a project with a high school biology class to document the impacts of light pollution on the marine birds that they saw stranded in the courtyard at their school, using COASST data collection and bird identification practices as a foundation. COASST acted in an advisory role as the students led data collection, summary, and presentation of this stranded birds research project. The internship partnership was able to foster interest in real-world data collection even beyond the core goals of the COASST program. Work from this partnership was presented at the National Marine Educators Association conference in Bellingham, WA in July 2023. g) Plans to continue This proposal will continue and deepen work from the 2022-2023 pilot phase of internships with COASST, funded by the NPC MRC. In this second year, we propose doubling our intern and mentor teams, and expanding monthly surveys to a second location, while keeping overhead costs low by engaging with established partners and communities. Two teams of surveyors will allow students to compare their experiences across different coastal communities through their engagement with the COASST internship program. In this year of the internship, timelines have been shifted slightly earlier, to better align with student and teacher availability during the school year. As long as funding is available, this model of internship with COASST can be offered at the same locations (extending a long-term dataset) and at additional locations along the outer Washington coast. Initial partnerships at the Quileute and Forks school districts have become the foundation of the first years of our program, as educators in those areas have established connections with COASST and experience incorporating COASST surveys into their interactions with students. We intend to apply for funding in future years with both the NPC MRC and sister MRC programs in other regions with data gaps (ex. in connection with COASST partners in the Quinault Environmental Protection Department, and Quinault School District). References Cited Timothy Jones, Julia Parrish, Jacqueline Lindsey, Charlie Wright and others (2023) Marine bird mass mortality events as an indicator of the impacts of ocean warming. Marine Ecology Progress Series :HEATav8. doi.org/10.3354/meps14330 Timothy Jones, Julia Parrish, Andre Punt, Vera Trainer, Raphael Kudela, Jennifer Lang, Mary Sue Brancato, Anthony Odell, Barbara Hickey. 2017. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 579: 111-127. doi.org/10.3354/meps12253 Timothy Jones, Julia Parrish, William Peterson, Eric Bjorkstedt, Nicholas Bond, Lisa Ballance, Victoria Bowes, Mark Hipfner, Hillary Burgess, Jane Dolliver, Kirsten Lindquist, Jacqueline Lindsey, Hannahrose Nevins, Roxanne Robertson, Jan Roletto, Laurie, Wilson, Trevor Joyce, James Harvey. 2018. Geophysical Research Letters. 45(7). doi/abs/10.1002/2017GL076164 Julia Parrish, Nicholas Bond, Hannah Nevins, Nathan Mantua, Robert Loeffel, William T. Peterson, James T. Harvey. 2007. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 352:275-288. doi.org/10.3354/meps07077 John F. Piatt, Julia K. Parrish, Heather M. Renner, Sarah K. Schoen, Timothy T. Jones, Mayumi L. Arimitsu, Kathy J. Kuletz, Barbara Bodenstein, Marisol García-Reyes, Rebecca S. Duerr, Robin M. Corcoran, Robb S. A. Kaler, Gerard J. McChesney, Richard T. Golightly, Heather A. Coletti, Robert M. Suryan, Hillary K. Burgess, Jackie Lindsey, Kirsten Lindquist, Peter M. Warzybok, Jaime Jahncke, Jan Roletto, William J. Sydeman. 2020. PLOS ONE 15(1): e0226087. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226087 10. Budget and Justification Funding is requested for .75 months of the COASST Participant/Intern Coordinator to plan and conduct trainings and coordinate interns/mentors through meetings, in person and virtually ($5,529). Travel includes support for COASST staff to travel to the coast for trainings in on the outer WA coast at the beginning and end of the internship program, including mileage, overnight lodging and subsistence ($855); and support for 4 interns plus 2 mentors to travel round trip to visit the University of Washington, including mileage for two vehicles, one night of lodging, and two days subsistence ($1,869). Survey kits for this project will cost approximately $50 for each intern team. All intern participants will receive a stipend for their participation in the program - $1520 each for 4 interns ($6,080). University fees and overhead expenses are calculated for non-participant costs, including those for University staff wages, survey kits, and staff travel ($3,600). Total request: $18,033. 10. Budget and Justification Category Detail MRC Request Total Salaries and Benefits or hourly wages 11,609 Science Coordinator Salary and benefits Base salary $5457, 30.8% benefits rate. 2% inflation applied. 0.75 months committed 5,529 Intern Stipend Stipend for 4 interns, $1500 each 6,080 Other Supplies 100 Survey kits 2 kits, $50 each 100 Travel 2,724 Travel/Subsistence for participants travel for 6 people from Clallam/Jefferson counties to Seattle (2 days meals, 3 rooms lodging, mileage for 2 vehicles) 1,869 Staff travel to training events travel for COASST staff from Seattle to coastal communities, twice (Meal, Lodging, Mileage) 855 Indirect expenses (All such expenses should be itemized.) 3,600 Salaries and Benefits of hourly wages indirect costs associated with staff salaries and benefits 3069 Survey kits indirect costs associated with producing survey kits 55.5 Travel indirect costs associated with processing travel 475 Totals 18,033