Volunteers asked to go about normal routine while paying more attention to natural world
The start of a new year: a time for optimism, ambitious plans to improve the world, and the grim suspicion that the first couple of months may well be a miserable slog through the deepest of winter’s gloom.
But for those who fear the cold and dark ahead, help is on the horizon. Researchers in Canada are investigating a simple trick they hope will boost flagging spirits even when the days are short and frost is in the air.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/25/2024 - 09:00
Scientists search for a variety to withstand the climate crisis as high temperatures and drought can stress trees
The climate crisis is increasingly affecting agriculture in the United States, including the production of Christmas trees.
Like all crops, Christmas trees are vulnerable to a changing climate, as the United States continues to experience warmer temperatures, more frequent and severe heat, increased rainfall, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes, as a result of global warming and the climate crisis – primarily driven by humans’ burning of fossil fuels.
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12/25/2024 - 08:00
Evaluation could lead to limits or bans on substances commonly used in the production of plastic and rubber
The Environmental Protection Agency is launching a formal review of five highly toxic plastic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, the notorious compound at the center of the East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck fire.
The move could lead to strong limits or bans on the substances.
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12/25/2024 - 04:05
In a little understood quirk of nature foresters have been putting the aspen tree under duress to promote flowering
On a nature reserve deep in the Scottish Highlands there is a polytunnel which houses a small forest of slender grey aspen trees. It is known as the “torture chamber”.
The aspen is one of the UK’s scarcest but most valuable trees. And to produce the tiny, delicate aspen seeds being harvested by the charity Trees for Life, these 104 specimens are deliberately made to suffer.
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12/19/2024 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 December 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00100-7
COVID-19 highlights the need to improve resilience and equity in managing small-scale fisheries
12/19/2024 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 December 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00091-5
Drifting fish aggregating devices in the Indian ocean impacts, management, and policy implications
12/19/2024 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 December 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00099-x
Shellfish reef ecosystems in Australia have been greatly depleted. Building on earlier trials, a continent-scale restoration initiative was underway by 2019 to restore 30% of their former distribution. Integral elements of building and progressing this ecoscape-scale restoration program are outlined and challenges discussed. Documenting pathways and challenges to large-scale restoration informs global commitments to see 30% of degraded ecosystems under effective restoration by 2030.
12/19/2024 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 December 2024; doi:10.1038/s44183-024-00098-y
2024 will be a decisive year for the deep sea mining regime. Pressure is mounting on the International Seabed Authority to adopt regulations for the commercial extraction of minerals while an increasing group of diverse actors are calling for a moratorium. In this comment, we give an overview of the state of negotiations, contextualize the most contentious issues and explain the institutional and legal framework in which the negotiations are taking place.
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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