CoastWatch Shoreline Science Workshop

Students studying a sample area on the coast. Photo by Michael Coe.

CoastWatch will offer only one Shoreline Science Workshop this summer, instead of the usual three. The good news is that we’re giving you plenty of advance notice to sign up for the one that will take place. It will be held July 8-10 at the Depoe Bay Community Hall (220 S.E. Bay Street). Online registration is now available.

The workshops, by now a CoastWatch tradition, will be led by ecologist Stewart Schultz, author of The Northwest Coast: A Natural History. Three full days of instruction and field experience will cover rocky shore, beach and estuarine habitats in depth, and will touch on forests, the nearshore ocean, marine mammals, tides, oceanography, citizen science, and other topics. Matters of concern such as marine debris and invasive species will also be discussed. Each session will include field trips, indoor presentations, and laboratory experiences (with some variation, depending on the weather).

We are pioneering a comprehensive approach toward our citizen science projects, with the Otter Rock Marine Reserve area our first area of focus, which is why we are returning to Depoe Bay after having held one of last year’s workshops there.

If you would like to reserve a place offline, paying by check, contact Fawn Custer, CoastWatch’s volunteer coordinator, at (541) 270-0027, fawn@oregonshores.org. (Incidentally, Stewart Schultz had schedule constraints this year, but we plan to resume holding three workshops next summer.)