DEEPEND at the Tortuga Music Festival
The DEEPEND Consortium is joining Rock The Ocean’s Conservation Village at the Tortuga Music Festival this weekend April 7-9, 2017. This event pairs music with conservation and will showcase more than 30 musical groups and 35+ ocean conservation groups all packed into one weekend on Fort Lauderdale Beach. This year’s theme of the Conservation Village is “JUST ONE THING” you can do to Rock the Ocean and start making a difference in saving our oceans and marine life. Stop by the DEEPEND booth to see what one thing you can do to help the deep sea. Then play some deep-sea trivia and win prizes! We will be there from 10am-7pm all weekend and if you cannot attend be sure to follow our highlights from the event on Facebook and Instagram!
Creep into the DEEPEND Summer Camps 2017
2017: Creep into the DEEPEND Summer Camps are back! This summer, Creep into the DEEPEND Summer Camps for k-8th grade are offered at museums and science centers throughout the country. To register or find out more, check out the list below and contact the museum or science center near you.
Catawba Science Center - Hickory, North Carolina
Liberty Science Center - Jersey City, New Jersey
Maine Discovery Museum - Bangor, Maine
Museum of Discovery and Science - Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Oregon Coast Aquarium's Oceanscape Network - Newport Oregon
Pacific Science Center - Seattle Washington
St. Louis Science Center - St. Louis Missouri
Tallahassee Museum - Tallahassee Florida
Univ of Michigan Museum of Natural History - Ann Arbor Michigan
(Organizations are incorporating and sharing DEEPEND Research within their summer camp program. Summer camp program, topics, title, and registration policies vary depending on the museum, science center, or aquarium. First come first served.)
Visit WhaleTimes for more information on future Creep into the DEEPEND Programs.
GOM Exploration Teacher Workshop 2017
We had a great turn out of 23 teachers at TAMU Galveston for the third Gulf of Mexico Exploration teacher workshop! Teachers learned about DEEPEND science and brought lesson plans and other resources back to their schools to share with colleagues and their students.
Thank you, Texas for a great event!
Fort Lauderdale Boat Show a Success
Thanks to all who stopped by the DEEPEND booth at the Fort Lauderdale Boat show. The show was a success despite a very rainy day on Saturday! Many thanks to all of the volunteers who helped out in the booth:
Rich Jones
Joe Lopez
Alex Marks
Rosanna Milligan
Mike Novotny
Nina Pruzinsky
Guillaume Rieucau
Sam Shore
Laura Timm
Sebastian Velez
Megan Weber
Blake Wilkins
Marine Navigation Lesson Plan
We are pleased to present you with the fourth in a series of teaching and learning modules developed by the DEEPEND (Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics) Consortium and their consultants. Whenever possible, the lessons will focus specifically on events of the Gulf of Mexico or work from the DEEPEND scientists.
All modules in this series aim to engage students in grades 6 through 12 in STEM disciplines, while promoting student learning of the marine environment. We hope these lessons enable teachers to address student misconceptions and apprehensions regarding the unique organisms and properties of marine ecosystems. We intend for these modules to be a guide for teaching. Teachers are welcome to use the lessons in any order, use just portions of lessons, and may modify the lessons as they wish. Furthermore, educators may share these lessons with other school districts and teachers; however, please do not receive monetary gain for lessons in any of the modules.
Meet the Tiny Bacteria That Give Anglerfishes Their Spooky Glow
A close up profile of an adult anglerfish female from the Linophryne family collected in the northern region of the Gulf of Mexico. © 2016 DEEPEND/ Dante Fenolio
Descend two hundred meters (about 656 feet) below the surface and the ocean is reduced to total darkness. Creatures that live beyond the Twilight Zone spend their lives almost entirely in a near-limitless black expanse, save for a group of luminous fishes, invertebrates and bacteria that have evolved a special adaptation: bioluminescence.
Bioluminescence is the predominant source of light in the largest fraction of the habitable volume of the earth—the deep ocean. It’s thought that 90 percent of open ocean organisms produce light of some kind, and that this ability that has evolved many times. It serves a few predictable purposes, like possibly signaling to members of the same species or illuminating prey, along with some capricious ones like the ability to eject luminescent body parts in order to distract a predator.
