- The GPS gods, give me a signal.
(happy music)
I'm Anabel and this is my hustle.
To me, hustle means just going after
what I want to do, and pursuing it.
I wanted to do marine
science and marine research.
I literally hustle from
bus stop to bus stop.
I commute around five
hours to get to my school
to get to do what I love doing.
Today we're going out on the water
To try and collect some
data about eelgrass,
and we're gonna see what
that eelgrass bed looks like
Seal.
(laughing)
(singing "The Circle
of Life" by Elton John)
This thing is a CastAway CTD,
so it measures salinity, and temperature,
and it measures depth, pressure.
I can take this thing, I
can put it in the water,
and lower it.
Ready to deploy?
- [Ardi] Free to deploy.
- Nine meters?
- [Ardi] Nine meters.
- Deploying.
In she goes.
And as it lowers, and as it pulls up,
it'll collect that data.
- Anabel's committed to this program,
and committed to marine science.
But science isn't about
finding the answers,
it's usually about asking questions,
and finding out what didn't work,
before you ever get
support for what did work.
- So this is what we got today.
There's a nice Halocline, and
a nice thermocline right here.
I have changed so much since
I started going to ORCA.
I was not anywhere near as confident
as I am right now.
And that might also be
attributed to the aquarium.
As I started volunteering at the aquarium,
I really started thinking about research,
and it's really inspiring.
As a youth ocean advocate,
I talk to everybody.
The vast majority of all
these animals in here,
you can tie it all back to eelgrass.
Hey dude.
In the field that I hope to go into,
usually having a
bachelor's degree and above
is really important.
Going to ORCA and getting
my associates degree
is one of the best first
steps to take at it,
and a great way to get
started early, I guess.
A running start (laughing).
This April, I'm gonna present
my research with eelgrass
with a bunch of other scientists
who are also talking about eelgrass
at the Salish Sea Ecosystems Conference,
get all those connections,
and we can put together a big discussion
on what is happening to the
eelgrass here in Puget Sound.
When I think about my future,
I think about college.
That's what's been on my
mind most of the time.
I've been doing a lot of
applications to colleges,
applications to scholarships.
And I'm just trying to figure out
how to get all those
pieces to line up together
in a way that would help
me achieve my dreams.
It's just amazing to see these people
all kind of have that moment of,
oh, this is what it's all about.
Thank you all so much for
talking about eelgrass with me,
it was real fun.
(audience applauding)
