10-22-12 1st Email

Dear Family,

As I dive continually further into my major, I am finding that I am getting less and less of an opportunity to go home. This is both happy and sad, as I start my career within the Marine Sciences and have to sacrifice time with family and friends at home. 

I am also learning new and interesting things that I have a very strong belief that everyone should know. I would like to start sending updates and interesting factoids out to family & friends so you can get a little taste of what I am doing.

For those of you who don't know, I am now in my Junior Year at UC Santa Cruz, working towards my BS in Marine Biology; (Hopefully later a Master's Degree).  I have also just started to Volunteer at The Seymour Marine Discovery Center at UCSC's Long Marine Lab. As part of my introduction to being an Exhibit Guide I attended about 24 hours of lecture on the Ocean and Conservation; including information about how to handle live sharks and saltwater invertebrates. Part of the job is learning how to answer any questions a visitor might have about the ocean and inspiring them to take interest, if not action, in protecting our oceans. I do not feel as if I can do this job accurately without first articulating these ideas to those I am closest to. 

So, some really cool things that I have learned that have me riled up enough to write an email about them: 

• The West Coast of North America (Alaska to Baja CA) has some of the richest waters in the entire world. The Kelp Forests that you see along the rocky coast can be considered the Rain Forests of the Ocean. More animals live underwater here than anywhere else in the world. (On par or more than the Great Barrier Reef). <<This is really cool>>. 

• Sea Otters hold this entire Kelp Forest together. (Eg. Otters eat Sea Urchins, Sea Urchins eat Kelp, nothing else eats Sea Urchins). Plus they hold hands when they sleep. :)

• Plastic is not recyclable. Read again. Plastic is not recyclable. When we send plastic to a recycling center they have the option to downcycle it (into a less useful item which is not recyclable) or send it to another country for storage. This means every piece of plastic you or I has ever used will outlive you by thousands if not millions of years. This includes "biodegradable corn plastic". I cannot even begin to rant about how easy it is to generally reduce the amount of plastic you consume. The easiest way to do this is by bringing your own reusable bags, cups, and silverware with you where ever you go. The amount of plastic you stop using has rippling effects that do everything from protecting the sea turtles toalerting local business that plastic use is something they should care about as well. 

• This is a chart showing the relative depths of oceans and lakes compared to submarine depth & sperm whale dive depth among other things. 

• This is the view I have when I go for runs around my neighborhood & This is where I go to school. Come visit. :) 

Feel free to ask me any questions or anything! I miss all of you and see you soon at Sarah's Wedding, Thanksgiving, and Kiser Christmas!.