[SEMCO] Plastics at SEA: North Pacific Expedition 2012

[Jill Tompkins]

Tomorrow the SSV Robert C. Seamans will set sail from San Diego on SEA’s
second research
expedition dedicated to the study of plastic marine debris,  Plastics at
SEA: North Pacific
Expedition 2012.  The crew of the expedition includes 31 SEA alumni from
classes W-10 to S-
233.  The 2500-nautical mile voyage to Honolulu will sail west into the
popularly dubbed, ‘Great
Pacific Garbage Patch’, an area of documented high concentrations of
floating plastic where,
according to models and recent observations, debris from the 2011 Japanese
tsunami will also be
drifting.  Scientific objectives include documenting plastic debris
concentrations and investigating
the effects of plastic in the ocean ecosystem.

We invite you to follow the expedition on our website
http://www.sea.edu/plastics/, which will be
updated daily with multimedia content including posts from award-winning
author and journalist
Jonathan Waterman.  Jon will also be writing weekly posts for National
Geographic  that  will
appear at http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/ as part of the Society's
"Ocean Views" news.
This year we have introduced a K-12 outreach page to our expedition
website, where students in
ten partner schools from around the country will submit questions that the
expedition team will
answer from sea.  A major goal of this expedition is outreach and education
to schoolchildren,
educators, and the public.

We ask that you not only enjoy following the Plastics at SEA expedition
online, but that you share
these links  with everyone in your network.  Post them on Facebook, share
them with your coworkers,
your children, your friends, and your friends’ children.  Tweet about
exciting discoveries.
Please help us introduce as many people as we can to SEA and our incredible
achievements on tall
sailing ships in the world’s oceans.

-- 
Jill Tompkins
Development
Sea Education Association
PO Box 6
Woods Hole, MA 02543
*508-540-3954 x576*
http://sea.edu/

[image: Description: SEASignature]
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