Hi! My name is Arianna and I am from San Diego, California. I moved to Oregon for college, where I majored in Marine Biology. I am very passionate about the ocean and what it takes to save it. I became interested in marine biology when I was in high school. I took classes every summer at a local university and one of them was all about marine invertebrates. I immediately fell in love with all those little boneless animals and decided in a heartbeat that the ocean is what I wanted to focus my life on. As a marine biology major, I was required to take three terms at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology. This close-knit campus taught me a lot about conservation, marine environmental issues, the different ecosystems around the world and their importance, and how to live a different lifestyle. I learned a lot about the importance of coral reefs such as their role as an ecosystem and their effects on surrounding wildlife. I’ve also learned quite a bit about the threats they face such as bleaching, coastal development, and pollution. This campus is where I learned I wanted to focus on conservation due to the high degree of negative impacts on our oceans (and the world in general). This is also where I discovered my love for tide pooling, which is now my all-time favorite activity. I found out about MCSS from my friend who got ahold of a list of internships and this one happened to be on there. Cerf Island stuck out to me because it has a lot of involvement in coral restoration. Since I wanted to pursue conservation and I have an unconditional love for invertebrates, this project fit all my interests as a post grad internship. I also grew up working on trail maintenance with my mom as a volunteer, so I found this aspect of Cerf Island to be beneficial to me. Another important area this project focuses on is interacting with guests, guiding them through snorkel routes, and informing them about the dangers the reefs face. I’m not usually very good at public speaking, so I am looking forward to gaining more confidence and increasing awareness. I’ve become very interested in public outreach lately since I’ve found that a lot of people don’t know all that much about the ocean and the threats it faces. And I am eager to be able to share my knowledge to guests and interact with people from around the world. I know a lot of people don’t think they can help change the world, but I believe any little bit can help. With more awareness, more people will hopefully feel compelled to do their part and in turn, tell the people around them to increase this mindful thinking.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2018
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