Friday February 8, 2008

Co-Bree Murphy, CACS, welcomed members and visitors. She asked each person to briefly introduce him/herself, their organization and their role. (See attached roster for members present at the meeting.)

KBRR: 4^th Annual PlanktonFest, Wednesday February 20^th 3-5pm

            Carmen requested help from partners especially for the art workshop to make big plankton that can hang in the hallway

Project Design and Evaluation Class, February 25-27, Free Class, Spaces available

CACS: Wynn Nature Center Winter Series, Presentation & Field Trip

Presentation: Winter Adaptations of Trees and Plants by Mike Gracz, February 21^st at CACS Building 7-8pm

Field Trip: Winter Adaptations Snowshoe Hike with Mike Gracz, February 23^rd 3-4:30pm at the Wynn Nature Center

Pratt: New Exhibits Coordinator hired for the Pratt Museum

IOVC: Winter Break Programming – contact Marianne about adding activities to the schedule of events for Spring Break

Jayme Margolin, UNAVCO, gave a presentation on Earthscope Plate Boundary Observatory Outreach program.  Her powerpoint presentation outlined the general program as well as it’s presence in Alaska.  She had a comprehensive packet that she handed out to members of each organization present.

www.unavco.org

Lots of data available for scientists and students to use, education & outreach section has lesson plans available as well.  Website provides opportunities to locate GPS sites and data and see seismic and volcanic action.

KBEEA Banner:  Partners approved logos, some discussion followed about the requirements for having a partner logo on the banner.  These requirements will be re-circulated to KBEEA members.

Funding of KBEEA website:  The Pratt Museum can continue to manage the account but the group needs to decide how to cover the costs.  At present the account is $413.60 in the negative.  Terry offered that KBRR will pay the balance to zero out the account, but the group needs to find a way to cover the yearly $360 cost to operate the website.  Various funding sources were discussed:

Rotary:  Glenn Seaman will check into having them fund a partial year

Homer Foundation Grant: Beth and Bree will check into this option – maybe the Daisy Lee Bitter Fund can cover a partial year – would require someone to write the grant

KPB School District:  Terry will talk to someone there about possible partial funding of site.

The goal is to find some sort of on-going support for the site.

Website needs to have the Teacher Trainings updated by partners.

Carmen gave a tip for entering Calendar events:  copy into a word document, work on the document, then paste back into the web calendar – this will make manipulation a lot easier!

Coordination of Spring/Summer Volunteers and Staff Orientations:  A discussion was held concerning coordinating our training opportunities for seasonal staff so as to not duplicate efforts and to provide more opportunities for seasonal staff.  It looked like there would be some opportunities to coordinate in early June.  It was decided that partners would share their training schedules with each other via email and try to coordinate as much as possible.

Marianne mentioned the CPR/First Aid training scheduled for Thursday April 24.

Tentative Training Schedules:

Pratt: June 10^th-ish

KBRR: Last 2 weeks of May

NOAA: 2^nd week of June

CACS: First 2 weeks of April

            First 2 weeks of June

IOVC: April 22 & June 10

Elizabeth W. offered to do training on the National Parks Service and geology

Carmen offered that KBRR can do a program for trainings as well

HydroFest:  Kris confirmed that 2 NOAA ships will be coming to Kachemak Bay to survey both this summer and next summer.  They will be here during the last 2 weeks of August.  There will be an open house during the Labor Day weekend.  There could be a wonderful opportunity to offer teacher workshops this year and next centered on the boat’s research.  The year when the boat is on Kachemak Bay coincides with the Gathering put on by the Pratt.

K-Bay Science Conference 2009:  Marilyn with CACS came to discuss next year’s 5^th Annual K-Bay Science Conference.  She updated the group with background info on the science conference and discussed talking with some scientists about the conference during the recent EVOS meetings.

Next spring is also the 20^th anniversary of the PWS oil spill and the science conference content should be connected to this.  It is also statehood year.

Most important task is to pick the date.  There are lots of conflicts in March.  Marilyn will follow up via email to request input on possible dates.

Other content issues:

Climate Science focus

Oil spill research – EVOS funding for community involvement might be possible

Tom Rhorer (sp?) as a key note speaker?

A discussion followed about how to outreach to scientists to emphasize improving their presentations so they are more accessible to the general public – improvements could be made in the areas of presentations and scientific posters.  Conducting some sort of “contest” for best posters that were voted on by the general public was discussed.

Marilyn asked for volunteers for various committees:

Fundraising/Logistics: Terry Thompson, CACS

Education: Carmen Field, Ryjil Christiansen, CACS

Science/Content: Debbie Tobin, Kris Holderied

Undeclared/At Large: Elizabeth Wasserman

Earth Week Coordination:  Marianne is coordinating Earthweek and will email out the current schedule of events.  Kyra Wagner with Sustainable Homer presented some information on the City’s role.  Discussion followed about Bike to Work Day and is was determined there would be a Clean Commute Day on the 22^nd and Kyra would work with the Chamber to make this a business challenge event.

Climate Change Exhibit: Deadline for notifying the Pratt of intent to participate in the art exhibit is March 1^st.  The show opens first Friday of April and will be up for 2 months.  Ryjil would also like to see Climate Change related programming during the time that the exhibit is up.  Please contact her if you have any ideas for programs during April and May.

Tide Guides Meeting: The meeting to train staff and volunteers from the KBEEA network of organizations will be April 9^th, 9:30-12:30 at AI & O Visitor Center.  All KBEEA organizational partners are highly encouraged to spread the word to have their volunteers attend this meeting/training. First part of program will be a lab and second part will involve going out to Bishop’s Beach for low tide practice.  Carmen is taking the lead on the class, Bree is willing to assist. 

It was recommended that the Bay Science and Kachemak Currents prior to the April 9^th class focus on Beach Etiquette and encourage people to volunteer to participate in the tide guide meeting. Bree will send out a message to CoastWalkers and COASST monitors to encourage them to participate in the meeting/training.  Bree also volunteered some of CACS costumes to be used during the low tide series in May to help get attention to tide guides.

KBRR is putting up Beach Etiquette posters up in the high school were visiting schools overnight.

Bree will continue conversations with the EE group on the upper peninsula about scheduling a joint teacher training about wildlife viewing etiquette and scheduling field trips.  This workshop could be targeted for the teachers around the Soldotna/Kenai specifically planning trips to Homer.

Summer

EPA Boat Visit:  Terry had not heard anything to date and thinks the boat is probably not coming.

Teacher Workshops: 

Beth presented information on the WOW wetlands teacher training opportunity June 6-8

Debbie T. presented information on Professional Development Classes being offered through KPC at Kasitsna Bay Lab: Marine Vertebrate Class June 20-22

Climate Change Class June 23-28

Seas and River Curriculum workshop will also be at Kasitsna Bay Lab again in June – dates were not available.

This year’s theme will be Biodiversity

CACS CoastWalk kick off is scheduled for September 11

Estuary Day is Sept 27 and KBRR will be holding a BioBlitz at Beluga Lake and Beluga Slough.

August 29^th-Sept 1^st is Pratt Gathering Event

Partners should get their events into CACS by August 18^th – CACS will handle publicity about CoastWeeks and put together the calendar.