Thursday

Scottie, Jules, Laura, Stevie, Todd, Matt, Damo, Ben, Jake, Kathy and Kim, enjoy sharing end of year stories and unite in saying farewell to Stevie who is off to join the Catlin team on an amazing video survey of the Great Barrier Reef! (www.catlinseaviewsurvey.com)

The week is almost ending and so is the year.

This Thursday caught me on a real good note, despite being seriously stung yeserday by jellyfishes on a sunset swim in my local Freo beach, and having a bad case of the itches. 

Woke up with the sunrise, wore flip flops to work, gave a talk to some very talented and engaged teenagers, had pub lunch with my lab mates and got some awesome research advise. I wonder what else I can fit into one day...

The morning´s talk was for PISCE, at Curtin University,a program that provides placements and scholarships to students in their last year of school. My task: to chat to them about careers in marine science, my path as a scientist, and my current research. The chat which consisted mainly of mouth watering pictures to lure them into becoming marine biologists, ended with a skit to look into conflicts between fish, recfishers and managers. To my surprise they were spot on to identify problems in all sectors, they identified with the point of view of each party, and had some awesome suggestions for solving conflict between users while still helping conserve fish and fisheries. Education and outreach came up as the main tools and they thought my talk was an example of how these could work! So I am very pleased to have contributed to some young promising minds and I look forward to seeing the field grow. My respect to the youth of western Australia and may you work hard to keep your oceans beautiful!

My gifts for making efforts to inspire Australian youth. The least I can do to say thank you Australia for funding my PhD!