SEARCH DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL REVISITED: THE ROLE OF MICROBES
PROGRAMS
 
Research-Based Online Learning Event (ROLE) Model Webinar
Webinar Topic: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Revisited:
The Role of Microbes
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
PRESENTATIONS and Q&A
Kjell Gundersen
& Karen Orcutt
Kjell Gundersen and Karen Orcutt
Concept map

About these Webinars:
The ROLE Model webinars provide scientists with the opportunity to interact with educators and present their research in a non-traditional format - through multimedia concept maps created with the Concept Map Builder and presented through the Ocean Climate Interactive. [more]

About these Scientists:
Dr. Karen Orcutt is an Assistant Professor at The University of Southern Mississippi. Her areas of expertise are biological oceanography, phytoplankton molecular ecology, nanostructured probes, and marine nitrogen fixation. Her research interests are molecular ecology of marine microbes, genetic diversity of phytoplankton, marine nitrogen fixation, biogeochemical cycling, and nanostructured probes for nutrient acquisition.

Dr. Kjell Gundersen is also a biological oceanographer and an Assistant Research Professor at The University of Southern Mississippi. His research interests are net and gross community primary productivity and respiration, marine/brackish water cyanobacteria; abundance, growth and N-fixation, coastal biogeochemistry; C, N and P-cycling, ocean/brackish water time-series, automated observation buoy sensors.
WEBINAR RECAP
Loop current
Following up their July 2010 webinar, Drs. Karen Orcutt and Kjell Gundersen, from The University of Southern Mississippi, led us back to the Gulf of Mexico for a continued discussion about oil consumption by microbes. As before, Karen and Kjell's presentation was very clear and their responses to questions were helpful and straightforward. They compared the Deep Water Horizon spill to other historic oil spills (not the biggest) and talked about the patchiness of this spill. They provided specific description of the chemical interaction between microbes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and went into depth about the processes of the "biological pump".
VIEW CLIPS FROM SCIENTIST'S PRESENTATION
1 - Oil Spills in Context   2 - Degradation of Oil
3 - Microbes Break Down Oil

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

Additional Resources
DISTRIBUTION OF WEBINAR PARTICIPANTS
Map showing distribution of webinar participants
Thirty one participants representing a variety of occupations joined in from fourteen states. Of the eleven participants who filled out the post webinar, 90% said that the scientist presentation was "useful" or "very useful", and 73% said that they felt more comfortable with the topic than they had before. 36% also said they now feel the topic is more relevant to their own work.

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Concept map