SEA Semester in the News
URI student joins SEA Semester to study coral reef ecology on tall ship ocean research voyage
URI Today

Woods Hole, Mass. - Dec. 4, 2018 - The Sea Education Association has announced that University of Rhode Island senior marine biology major Sharil Deleon is on an ocean research voyage this fall to study human impact on Caribbean coral reef ecosystems. Through SEA Semester: Caribbean Reef Expedition, which is offered by Sea Education Association, the Central Falls native, together with other students with a variety of academic interests, is conducting guided field research at sea sailing through the Lesser Antilles to St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.

Q: Kelsey, Congratulations!  Can you tell us more about what this means?  When did you apply, and how did you find out you had won?

A: Thanks!  It was a big surprise for me since it’s so competitive.  The Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) means that I have my own funding for graduate school so I can focus on my research.

The National Maritime Historical Society presented Sea Education Association with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Maritime Education at an awards dinner held Thursday, Oct, 25th at the New York Yacht Club.

SEA in the NEWS
National Geographic
Oct. 10, 2018
Beach clean-up study shows global scope of plastic pollution

SEA Professor of Oceanography Jan Witting recently completed his 5th research expedition to the remote Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) with SEA Semester class S-281, Protecting the Phoenix Islands. As a member of PIPA’s Scientific Advisory Committee, he will be contributing data collected on his voyages at a meeting of the PIPA Trust later this month.

Q: Jan, can you begin by briefly telling us more about both PIPA’s Scientific Advisory Committee and the PIPA Trust.

A: When the Phoenix Islands Protected Area was established in 2006, it was by an act of Kiribati parliament. In that legal framework, the PIPA Conservation Trust has the task of guiding and governing the operation and future development of PIPA, working with a broad array of international partners. The Trust oversees the funds that have been raised to help compensate Kiribati for lost fishing license revenue. Under the Trust, the PIPA implementation office (PIO) is a body whose job it is to implement the Trust’s decisions on the ground. The Science Advisory Committee (SAC) serves to inform both the PIO and the Trust to advise them of the current scientific understanding of a broad array of topics relevant to managing the ecosystems within PIPA. Members of the SAC come from many different disciplines and backgrounds, and some of us are involved in active research programs within PIPA.

Dr. Kara Lavender Law, SEA Research Professor of Oceanography, will testify about ocean plastics pollution before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on Wednesday, Sept. 26th, beginning at 10 am.

In the fall of 2019, SEA Semester will launch a new program called Climate and Society in New Zealand. According to the course description, this new semester “takes a human-centered approach to climate change informed by the humanities and social sciences, and explores possibilities found within social and political institutions, economic markets, cultural practices, and the creative forces of art, literature, and design.”  Dr. Jeff Wescott, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, explains…

Q: Why was there a need for this program?

A: Recently, we met with faculty from several of our sending institutions to discuss new directions for SEA program offerings. They described the broad interest in climate change across social sciences and humanities majors. We already have an excellent SEA Semester program with a climate change focus, called Oceans and Climate. But that program is geared toward science majors. Our discussions with external advisors, and our own internal deliberations, led us to develop a new program that appeals to non-science majors.

SEA in the NEWS
Watching the Phoenix Rise - Debriefing Stage
Nat Geo Open Explorer
By Jacob Jaskiel

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve had the opportunity to reflect upon what we just experienced and accomplished on this wildly successful expedition through the Phoenix Islands Protected Area. Our cohort of 19 students and 15 scientists and crew sailed the Robert C. Seamans over 3,500 nautical miles while contributing to a dataset that now spans five years of oceanographic, biological, and chemical data. We conducted 46 Hydrocasts and 96 plankton net tows.

Did you shoot awesome video footage while you were at SEA?  Then enter the SEA Video Contest!  We’re looking for videos, less than 60 seconds in length, that capture what’s special about SEA Semester.  The videos can be about anything: our ships, the program you participated in, your shipmates, life at sea, charismatic megafauna, the stars, your favorite port stop… it’s up to you!

Winners will receive prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, plus, of course, everlasting glory.

But you can’t win unless you enter!

Yoana Guzman, a student in the Woods Hole Partnership Education Program (PEP), had never been on - nor even near - the ocean.

“Home to me is mostly desert,” said the Cal State, Chico student who’s pursuing a double major in electrical engineering and physics. “This was my first time near a large body of water.”

It was also the first time that a voyage aboard the SSV Corwith Cramer, operating out of Woods Hole this summer, was incorporated into PEP.  During their first week of classes, PEP students boarded the Cramer at Dyers Dock and embarked on a four-day cruise through Vineyard Sound and Buzzards Bay.