News you can use from the National Ocean Service January 13, 2026 Winning photographer: Vincent Denarié Check out the submissions and winners of the 2025 Arctic Report Card Photo & Video Contest. The photos are free to use (there are even winter desktop calendars available for download), with appropriate credit to the photographer. Tuesday, January 13, 2026 | 6-7 p.m. ET Join marine biologist, naturalist, and Co-Director of the Santa Barbara Channel Whale Heritage Area, Holly Lohuis, as she shares stories of the diversity of whales that feed and travel through the Santa Barbara Channel and the waters of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Through the lens of the Whale Heritage Area designation, discover how responsible tourism, community engagement, and education play a vital role in protecting whales and fostering a deeper connection to our ocean. Register for the whale webinar Wednesday, January 14, 2026 | 3 p.m. ET Southern California's estuaries can experience large swings in water quality due to events like freshwater inflow, sewage spills, and estuary mouth closures. The Tijuana River NERR (TRNERR) monitors several estuaries in San Diego County to better understand how biological communities respond to changes in water quality. Through an iterative process with TRNERR and other users, this project team co-developed a biosensor monitoring system that uses shellfish (oysters and mussels) as biosentinels. In this webinar, the project team will describe their collaborative process within the team and with additional potential end users. Potential users included resource managers, aquaculture practitioners, and research biologists working with these bivalves in other settings. The team will describe the basic components of the biosensor equipment and approaches used in the field and lab for gathering and analyzing data. Data from the focal estuaries will be used to illustrate individual and group responses of the biosentinel bivalves to rapidly-shifting water quality conditions. Register for the Habitat Heartbeats webinar  Thursday, January 29, 2026 | 7-8 p.m. ET This Science Update celebrates and shares the 20th anniversary Arctic Report Card (ARC), an annual update on the state of the Arctic environment produced by NOAA and national and international partners. In this webinar, ARC contributors will share the latest science headlines and key findings of the 2025 Report which will be released in December of 2025. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about this annual Report Card and a new Data Dashboard launching alongside the 2025 ARC. |   Region: Nationwide FISHstory is a project that trains citizen science volunteers to identify and count fish and people in historic fishing photos. Data collected with your help will provide a novel picture of the fishery prior to dedicated monitoring programs and help improve our understanding of the fishery for several iconic species. Analyzing the photos will help provide better information of what people were catching during this time period, seasonality of their catches, and possibly estimate a rough catch per angler which can provide insights on the health of fish populations. |  |
 Webinar Dates: January 28, February 4, February 11, and February 25, 2026 Join the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's Hudson River Estuary Management Program and the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve's - Free Virtual Winter Speaker Series! Meet and learn from scientists, community leaders, and environmental educators who work at the intersection of research, education, and environmental and social justice. Engage in discussions about monitoring and research, field-based learning, and creating pathways to overcome barriers and challenges in the field of science and education. |  Date: Thursday, July 16, 2026 Location: Cambridge, MD The NOAA Ocean Exploration Education Team is coordinating the Blue Technology Education Workshop immediately following the NMEA 2026 Annual Conference. This professional development session is designed to connect blue technology organizations with early-career educators who are keen to integrate ocean engineering and technology into their teaching. The workshop aims to equip educators with the tools and connections needed to bring cutting-edge blue technology into their classrooms. Morning sessions will feature presentations and hands-on demonstrations from six blue technology education organizations: MATE ROV, Robonation, Educational Passages, Blue Robotics, Open CTD, and NOAA's Adopt a Drifter program). In the afternoon, participants will network with veteran educators and develop concrete action plans for implementing blue technology in the upcoming school year. Registration is required and limited to 30 educators. The workshop fee is $50 per participant. Registration will open with conference registration in April 2026. Scholarship Opportunity: NOAA Ocean Exploration, via our cooperative agreement with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and in partnership with NMEA, will provide $1,200 travel scholarships to cover conference and workshop registration and offset travel expenses for one early career, K-12 formal educator from each NMEA chapter to attend the 2026 NMEA National Conference and Blue Technology Education Workshop. Scholarship applications are due by February 28. Please share with educators in your region! |  |
Workshop Dates: July 28-30, 2026 Pre-registration is now open for the 2026 Resilient Futures Teacher Workshop! Middle school and high school educators are invited to a three-day in-person teacher workshop. Engage with sessions on education resources, including scientist talks, lab tours, and networking sessions by CEEE, NOAA, and friends. This session will cover topics such as climate science, natural hazards, water resources, data literacy, and more. Graduate credits available. Participants will leave with a variety of classroom-ready lessons/activities and can receive a 20-hour PD certificate OR 1-2 Continuing Education credits from the University of Colorado Boulder upon course completion. After pre-registration closes, a small registration fee will be required when the official registration opens. Participants who complete the course will receive a gift card.   Teek and Tom journey through space, and kick back at a movie theater, to learn all about the cool technologies scientists use to monitor Earth's ocean and atmosphere! Explore important gizmos and gadgets like satellites, weather balloons, hurricane hunter aircrafts, drones, and underwater instruments and vehicles. The supplemental lesson plans — developed for grades four through six — allow students to build knowledge of and skills associated with important Earth science concepts. Through the exploration and investigation of NOAA data, visualizations, and content, the lessons support the videos in telling a cohesive story of key Earth systems. | Applications Due: Saturday, January 31, 2026 NOAA is now accepting applications from undergraduate students, providing funding, a stipend, and hands-on internship experience. Applications Due: Monday, February 9, 2026 This is a paid summer research experience program open to students who attend community college in Colorado and some surrounding states. The program allows students to explore earth and environmental sciences and gain the confidence to transition to a four-year program in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) disciplines. Ten to nineteen students receive a weekly stipend of $700 to conduct field- or lab-based independent research over a nine-week period in the summer (June 1—July 31, 2026) while working with a team of scientists. Students learn basic research and communication skills, and they present their research at a local student science symposium. Applications Due: Tuesday, February 17, 2026 The Literacy Awards program, sponsored by Rubenstein since 2013 and the Kislak Family Foundation since 2023, recognizes organizations that provide exemplary, innovative and replicable strategies to promote literacy in the United States and abroad. The awards encourage the continuing development of innovative methods for promoting literacy and the dissemination of the most successful practices. For more than a decade, the Library has recognized the urgent need to achieve universal literacy through the program. An applicant information session will be held on Tuesday, January 13 at 2 p.m. ET. Attendees must register for the information session in advance. Nonprofit organizations, schools, libraries, government-sponsored initiatives and tribal organizations are invited to apply. Do you have an item you'd like to share in future issues of The Watch? | |
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