Reception before seminar at 3:00 PM
NOAA’s growing Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System (CBIBS) offers watershed residents a unique perspective on the health of their waterways. Six buoys monitor water conditions in Virginia and Maryland from their locations on the James and Elizabeth Rivers and at the mouths of the Susquehanna, Rappahannock, Potomac and Patapsco Rivers. Interested individuals can "visit" any buoy in the system via www.buoybay.org or by calling 877-BUOY-BAY. Each buoy not only monitors real-time data, but as a marker along the Captain John Smith National Historic Trail, each tells the story of what happened to Smith as he explored the Bay. Virtual visitors can learn about Smith's near-death experience at Stingray Point from the Rappahannock buoy; or his communications with several tribes along the Susquehanna from that river's buoy. Buoys monitor more than 20 different physical and biological characteristics of the water, including chlorophyll, turbidity, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and water and air temperatures. Future plans for the buoys include additional nutrient sensors, vertical GPS profilers, a curriculum that makes buoy data relevant to the classroom, and additional buoy deployments throughout the Bay.
As an Education Coordinator with the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, Ann Marie Chapman oversees Bay Watershed Education and Training grantees in Virginia and West Virginia; supports the dissemination of NOAA-based science to the Virginia education community; and manages the Office's undergraduate and graduate internship program. Before joining NOAA in September 2007, Ms. Chapman worked for over eight years with the Department of the Interior as an interpretive Park Ranger at various locations on the East Coast, including Prince William Forest Park in Virginia, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts, and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina. While with DOI, she provided technical assistance to additional sites, including an ecotourism project located on the periphery of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. Ms. Chapman has a B.S. degree from Mary Washington College (now the University of Mary Washington) in Environmental Science, with a secondary major in Spanish.
Reception before seminar at 3:00 PM
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Research Innovations Building I Old Dominion University Norfolk, VA 23529 757-683-5548 |
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