Featured Content
New Virtual Classroom Resources
Marine Arthropods: A Successful Design - for ONLINE LEARNING
Discover the advantages of having jointed legs and an exoskeleton.
Terrestrial Arthropods: The Conquerors - for ONLINE LEARNING
In this lesson, students explore how the adaptable arthropod body allowed them to invade land and air.
Featured Teacher
Erin Rempala, San Diego City College
Posted on May 7th, 2021
I would say spending lots and lots of time in nature as a child influenced me most in pursuing science,” said Erin Rempala who teaches Environmental Science & Sustainability, Marine Biology and Oceanography at San Diego City College.
If it includes outside adventure, Erin is all IN!
Featured Scientist
Colin Howe PhD Candidate, Penn State University
Posted on March 9th, 2021
Although Colin Howe is now living far from the ocean in school in Pennsylvania, his mind has always been on the ocean. He’s working on his PhD in marine science at Penn State studying corals off the coast of Colombia.
Megan Olhasso Curator of Fish and Invertebrates, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Posted on January 25th, 2021
For all of you who always dreamed of working in an aquarium taking care of the animals, Megan Olhasso gives us a solid picture of what that looks like.
Featured Creature
Ammonites may be the most familiar fossil to us — aside from dinosaurs.News
People Have Shaped Nature for Thousands of Years
Posted on May 4th, 2021
The idea of “natural” or “wild” lands is a myth. Scientists released a study showing that about three quarters of terrestrial nature has been shaped over 12,000 years by the land use of Indigenous and traditional peoples. Those land use practices included burning, hunting, species propagation, domestication and cultivation.
The cause of the current biodiversity crisis is a result of intensifying and new uses of the biodiverse landscapes shaped and sustained by traditional societies. “[This study] shows that high biodiversity is compatible with, and in some cases a result of, people living in these landscapes,” says Yadvinder Malhi at the University of Oxford. “Working with local and traditional communities, and learning from them, is essential if we are to try to protect biodiversity.”
Kelp forests and Sea Urchin Barrens
Posted on April 12th, 2021In 2015 a “blob” of warm water, combined with a strong El Niño created extra warm water in the Monterey Bay and slowed the growth of giant kelp. This warming caused sea urchins, who typically thrived in their niches, to proactively search for kelp instead of waiting for it to drift by. This all created what is known as sea urchin barrens.