Webinar Series

fish swimming around a coral reef

The National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series provides educators, students, and the interested public with educational and scientific expertise, resources and training to support ocean and climate literacy. This series generally targets formal and informal educators that are engaging students (elementary through college) in formal classroom settings, as well as members of the community in informal educational venues (e.g. after school programs, science centers, aquariums, etc.). However, the series is open to anyone interested in the topics listed below.

For distance learning programs about marine mammals and other protected species in the wild, please visit our Wildlife Viewing Guidelines and the NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources' Marine Life Viewing Guidelines to ensure you are aware of the regulations.


Upcoming Webinars

Left from Right: A female scientist of color; a scenic photo of Tomales Bay with seagrass; a close-up photo of a seagrass blade; and a piece of equipment.

Plants Get Sick Too: Monitoring Seagrass Wasting Disease in a Changing Climate

March 19, 2024 at 12 pm Hawaii / 3 pm Pacific / 5 pm Central / 6 pm Eastern

Serina Moheed, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of California, Davis and a Dr. Nancy Foster Scholar

With climate change, disease outbreaks are increasing in our ocean and it's crucial to understand how they are affecting foundationally important marine species such as seagrasses. Seagrass meadows provide habitat for an extraordinary number of different organisms, can protect coastlines against storms, and have the ability to store harmful greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere into the soil. Tomales Bay estuary in northern California holds an estimated 9% of the state's seagrass population, and while disease is present in the area, not much is known about if there are different pathogen strains within seagrass meadows. Join Serina Moheed as she talks about how she monitors seagrass wasting disease in the field (spoiler- it's muddy!), methods for analyzing the effects of the disease, and how in her opinion growing a marine pathogen in the lab can be much harder than taking care of a houseplant.

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webinar collage

Diving into the African American History of Eastern North Carolina— The Underwater Archaeology of Cape Fear Rice Plantations

April 23, 2024 at 7 a.m. Hawaii / 10 a.m. Pacific / 12 p.m. Central / 1 p.m. Eastern

Join underwater archaeologist Dr. Emily Schwalbe as she presents research on the submerged archaeology of rice plantations in Brunswick County, North Carolina. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Cape Fear region was the only place in North Carolina that had the environment for commercial rice agriculture. Rice plantations were operated by enslaved Africans, who also used the local creeks and rivers to travel and, in some cases, escape enslavement. Much of the archaeological evidence of these activities is now underwater, but Emily’s recent work alongside local North Carolina organizations has identified and recorded sites that tell new stories about plantation histories. Be sure to register for this webinar to learn about African American history, plantations, and the underwater archaeology of North Carolina rivers!

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left: Dr. Julia Parrish; Top-middle: a seabird being measured;  Top-right:papers containing data; Bottom-right: COASST logo;

What's Washed In: Seabirds, Marine Debris, and Citizen Science

April 23, 2024 at 2 pm Hawai`i / 5 pm Pacific / 7 pm Central / 8 pm Eastern

Dr. Julia Parrish, Executive Director of the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST)

Since the first surveys began in 1999, Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) has steadily expanded from a nucleus of five beaches along the southern outer coast of Washington State to nearly 450 beaches spread across northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Learn more about this West Coast citizen science program involving hundreds of participants collecting monthly data on the identity and abundance of beach-cast birds and marine debris, with the goal of creating the definitive baseline against which the impacts of any near-shore catastrophe could be measured.

This webinar is co-sponsored by NOAA’s Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and Feiro Marine Life Center.

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