This internship provides an opportunity for an applicant to work with BOTH a research team and a communications team to develop new products for communicating fisheries and ecosystem science to a variety of audiences.

The SCIENCE focus of this internship will be “Aquaculture.” The science team has been doing field work in shellfish habitats (oysters and clams) and has collected some amazing underwater video that is ready for some creative applications. This study compares the ecological functions (e.g., food availability, protection from predators) provided by shellfish aquaculture sites versus natural eelgrass sites in Puget Sound, WA.

The COMMUNICATIONS focus will be to help research and develop outreach activities, stories, and/or engaging science content (one pagers, photos, blogs, story maps) for our website and social media platforms.

Key science and communication questions:
-How can blogs and websites most effectively communicate our science results?
-How can underwater GoPro videos communicate information about how fish and large invertebrate communities utilize eelgrass and shellfish aquaculture habitats?
-How can outreach about shellfish/finfish in Puget Sound complement national aquaculture messaging campaigns?
-What communications tools and resources are most useful for sharing information about aquaculture with diverse audiences?

Possible Additional Opportunities (depending on student interest)
-Design an independent project as part of the larger research study
-Take your ‘communication lens’ into the field. Spend a week collecting biology, hydrology, and chemistry data and camping in Idaho where we study the importance of returning adult salmon carcasses as sources of nutrients (i.e., fertilizer) to streams in the Salmon River Basin.
-Try your hand at developing lessons and teaching middle school students about marine or fisheries science at NOAA Science Camp.
-Help us inventory our existing web resources (i.e., news stories, science projects, blogs, curricula), and identify or develop new web and social media content we will need in the future.