Bringing Alaska's Oceans to DC

Seward High School students Brianna Honebein, Jacob Marshall, Maggie Herbert and Rain Becker who are representing Alaska at the National Student Summit. More information about the group and their project can be found on their wikipage: http://alaskasealifecentersummitdelegation.wikispaces.com/.

This week 4 students from Alaska accompanied by two Alaska SeaLife Center educators (Adrienne Moretti and Laurie Stuart Morrow) are in Washington D.C. participating in the 3rd National Student Summit on the Ocean and Coasts which is organized through ther Coastal America partnership (see http://www.coastalamerica.gov/). The summit is focused on the Third Principle of Ocean Literacy which addresses the influence of the ocean on weather and climate.
This summit is being held at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.  The purpose of this summit is to inspire students to protect, preserve, and restore coastal ecosystems through community involvement and encourage them to pursue future academic and career paths in the marine and environmental sciences. The Alaska students are one of twenty student delegations from Coastal Ecosystem Learning Centers around the United States and Mexico.
This is the second time that the Coastal America and Alaska SeaLife Center’s Coastal Ecosystem Learning Center Partnership has supported Alaskan high school students to visit D.C. This will be a tremendous learning opportunity for these students as well as a chance to share their knowledge about Alaska’s oceans.
The summit has some exciting keynote speakers including: Jean-Michel Cousteau, Ocean Explorer and Film Producer; Dr. Sylvia Earle, Marine Biologist and National Geographic Explorer in Residence; Jack Hanna, Zookeeper and Wildlife expert; Dr. Nancy Knowlton, Smithsonian Institution’s Sant Chair for Marine Science; and Jim Toomey, Cartoonist and Creator of Sherman’s Lagoon.
When not presenting or attending workshops, the students will also have the opportunity to participate in educational opportunities such as visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Air & Space Museum, Memorials, visiting Capitol Hill and congressional offices.

For more details see:
The JASON Project Interactive Broadcast with students, 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. EST, February 16, 2011 - http://www.jason.org/science/live/coastal_america/jason/event.aspx

Student Summit presentations and overview -  http://studentsummit.wikispaces.com/