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2014 Autumn | Education & Outreach, Natural Science & Restoration

Troubles in Nonnative Species Outreach

Student(s):

Shaleina (Sheina) Vogt

Program or Department(s):

  • Program on the Environment
  • University of Washington

Site supervisor(s):

Jeff Adams

Partner(s):

  • Washington Sea Grant

Faculty advisor(s):

Samantha Dolan, College of Education, University of Washington

My project began with my internship with Washington Sea Grant (WSG), an organization focused on educating, addressing, and managing marine issues. With the Washington Sea Grant I created outreach materials about possible nonnative European Green Crab (Green Crab) expansion onto the Olympic Peninsula. I was interested in how language used to describe nonnative species may affect the general public. I did this through literature review, observation, and a meta-analysis of articles about Green Crab in Washington. I found that the word ‘invasive’ is used 78% of the time, and that there seems to be a small group of people that are switching to using less militaristic word choices.