The Northwest Aquatic & Marine Educators Association (NAME) is a group of people and organizations doing education and outreach having to do with all watersheds in the greater Pacific Northwest region. For them this is geographically defined as British Columbia, Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. They are also a sub unit of the larger National Marine Educators network.

NAME focuses on all issues within the PNW watersheds, including fresh water, salt water, and uplands. Within this are folks working issues pertaining to climate change, sustainability, environmental and social justice issues, and Low Impact Development and green infrastructure.

The theme this year is focusing on urban environments due to the conference being held in Seattle. The conference rotates between chapters each year so the next one will be in BC, then Alaska, then Oregon before returning to Washington again in 2019.

So why am I telling you all about this? Well if you, or anyone you know engages with any of these focus areas then you might be interested in attending this conference….or maybe presenting at it. I would love to see some AUS representation at the conference! Full disclosure here, I am helping to organize parts of this conference so I have a bit of a bias.

On our last conference planning call this week we identified several areas that we still have room for presenters at the conference. We have room for 8 more diversity proposals, 3 more hands-on innovative teaching activity proposals (45min), and two more 15 minute hands-on innovative teaching activity proposals.
Attached to this email is the presentation application that is due by June 19th, but the earlier it is submitted the better the chance of your proposal being accepted. Just a side note, all presenters must be registered for the conference. There are some scholarships available though! The scholarship application deadline is June 15th with the application form available here: http://www.pacname.org/mg.shtml

As an extra, extra bonus this year it is NAME’s 40th Anniversary so there are bound to be some really fun celebrations speckled all through the days of the conference. And if all of that is not enough to entice you, and your students and alumni to get involved how about mega exposure to those in a like field of study? At the same time that NAME’s conference will be going on (on the UW campus btw) so will a conference on bio=statistics with an expected attendance of several thousand folks, with 250 of them sharing the same building as our presentations. So our folks and theirs will be mingling over coffee on the breaks. What better way to network and get your work seen by an even larger audience right? Don’t worry we are inviting them in to our poster session happy hour event!

So the long and short of this email is I invite all of you, and your students, and all alumni that have any connection to education and outreach on all issues within the PNW watersheds, including fresh water, salt water, and uplands, including issues pertaining to climate change, sustainability, environmental and social justice issues, and Low Impact Development and green infrastructure, to consider applying to present at this conference in one of our remaining spots or by presenting a poster during the poster session.

I would appreciate it if you share this opportunity widely within your networks and current AUS students. I would also appreciate it if Ingrid could get this out to all AUS alumni.

Thanks for reading!

Leihla Scharlau

TESC Alum

Program Coordinator

Mid Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group

360-888-0565 (cell)