ESI98 Project Plan

Topic:

Fisheries / Climate Change

Faculty Mentor:

W. Waldo Wakefield
Institute of Marine & Coastal Sciences
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

Project Team

List of team members.

Description of Research Project:

The focus of this project is on the impact of human activities on living marine resources, especially, marine fish populations (their "health" and availability as a food resource) and their associated habitat, and the potential for climate change to influence fish population health and availability of living marine resources. The project team will select several marine fish species that are the targets of major fisheries, the selection of which will be determined by the interest of team (fishery with relevance to their home state, coastline, etc.), significance of fishery, and availability of fishery and relevant climate-related data for the ecosystem supporting the fishery. Two fisheries that come to mind are Bering Sea Pollock and one of the North Pacific salmonid species.

Scientific Objectives:

To understand how human activities and potential climate change might alter living marine resources (primarily finfishes) and their associated habitat.

Educational objectives:

To develop team members' understanding of scientific inquiry and the scientific method review, by completing a specific project. To develop modes of delivery for using the project in teaching at levels from junior high school through college. The modes of delivery will include (a) discussion/seminar, (b) role-playing scenarios, (c) individual research projects, and (d) team research projects. For the team research projects, teams could consist of students from the same school or college or from different institutions.

Outcomes:

Participants will understand the scientific method because they have applied it to a specific problem and will be able to teach their students using techniques and materials developed as part of the project. Participants will understand how human activities and climate change might alter coastal ecosystems, and influence marine fish populations and their availability as a food resource (and as components of the ecosystem).

Resources Needed:

Most of the work will be done using resources on the Internet and the project itself will develop materials for the World Wide Web. All team members will be expected to do a thorough review fisheries resources in their region (a region will be assigned for landlocked individuals) before arriving for the summer program. Web-based training support and knowledge of personal computers (PC) and commonly used PC software (e.g., word/webprocessor and spreadsheet) is essential.

Woodrow Wilson Leadership Program in Environmental Science lpt@www.woodrow.org
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation webmaster@woodrow.org
CN 5281, Princeton NJ 08543-5281 Tel:(609)452-7007 Fax:(609)452-0066