Unique views into the stories surrounding the COASST dataset through story maps, recorded presentations, art installations, podcasts, and more!


Science Updates

These are special publications highlighting recent research and peer-reviewed scientific papers.


Story Maps

Science storytelling through audio clips and photographs that center you in space and time

Narratives of Coastal Change

2022

Explore coastal communities on the pacific coast of North America. Through conversations with beachcombers and beach surveyors, themes such as change, erosion, tides, death, and upwelling emerge. This project explores the attachments that people have with place and how scientific exploration connects us to place.

How Marine Heatwaves are Changing Ocean Ecosystems

2020

The ocean is changing and recent spikes in the ocean temperature during marine heatwaves are causing ripple effects throughout the marine ecosystem. This is a summary of what we learned from a massive seabird die-off in the north Pacific.


Podcasts

Science storytelling in a audio format.

Bird Banter

COASST episode

Podcast #129 with Jackie Lindsey and Charlie Wright of COASST, 2022

Citizen Science

COASST episode

Scistarter podcast featuring an interview with Hillary Burgess and Dee Ritchie, 2019


COASST Presentations

What’s washed in? Seabirds and Citizen Science

Dr. Julia Parrish discusses citizen science and the beached bird research taking place at COASST at the Washington Ornithological Society’s monthly meeting (April 2024).

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The Social in the Science

Dr. Julia Parrish tells the story of social science research at COASST: the “Who” and “Why” of the beach surveyors at the core of our natural science work.

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COASST: a History

Executive director Dr. Julia Parrish takes a tour of the last 20 years of COASST. From beached murres on Tatoosh to a virtual training program in a pandemic, COASST has always been a program about conducting critical science with excellent people.

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Citizen Science

Citizen science is for the birds. It is, anyway, for the hundreds of people who track dead seabirds as citizen scientists with Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), Julia Parrish’s research organization. Over the years, Parrish built and trained a coalition of volunteer, everyday scientists — co-collaborators in her work — from California to Alaska who help collect data about their beaches so we can better understand the health of the oceans.

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Seabird Memorial

Originally scheduled to show at the 2020 Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival, Homer, Alaska, artist, Kim Mcnett, created representations of the beached seabirds she observed in August 2019 while on a fat tire bike trip from Kotzebue to Point Hope.

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Does Knowing the People Make the Science Better? COASST, Climate Change and COVID-19

Julia Parrish’s keynote address to the NASA Summer of Citizen Science community (virtual webinar) in August 2020.

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COASST and BCBBS Seabird Die Off Stories

In this video, COASST and BCBBS team up to present on seabird mortality events at the PSEMP Nearshore_SSEC presentations on May 21, 2020

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COVID Clouds and Silver Linings: The Value of Citizen Science in a Pandemic

Julia Parrish presents at the August 2020 HMSC Science on Tap (virtual webinar)

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Cool COASSTal Stories

May 1, 2020. Executive Director Julia Parrish shares three stories about the people and science that make up COASST: marine debris pattern comparisons between Oregon and Puget Sound, a Common Murre die-off in 2015-16, and mass Velella velella strandings. She is joined by Advisory Board member Bill Tweit (WDFW) and Science Coordinator Hillary Burgess.

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Optimizing Data Quality and Participant Retention in Hands-on Citizen Science

April 10, 2019 presentation to the UW College of the Environment. This talk pokes at what the “right” blend of high-to-low tech might be to optimize data quality and participant retention in a hands-on, repeated activity CitSci project.

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Champions of Change: Citizen Science

At the White House COASST Executive Director, Julia Parrish, receives the Champion of Change Award (Julia speaks at 11:05).

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