About
The Santa Cruz MPA Collaborative brings together marine protected area experts from local and federal agencies, nonprofits, ocean businesses, scientific institutions, and museums.
Other Ways to Engage
MPA Exhibit
The Santa Cruz MPA Collaborative worked with the Santa Cruz Children’s Museum of Discovery to integrate engaging, interactive, multi-media exhibits with understandable, user-friendly MPA educational content. The museum created an original interactive map of the local MPAs with content questions, which the visitor answers by pushing buttons that light up the correct answer.
Santa Cruz MPA Mobile Cart
The Collaborative worked with Natural Bridges State Park on the development of a mobile cart that park docents use to facilitate MPA education. Components of the cart include brochures and pamphlets, educational MPA posters, curated skulls of adult and juvenile sea otters, a photo album of local tidepool inhabitants, interactive materials for children such as MPA Pledge postcards, beach treasure hunt, beach bingo, MPA activity booklet, as well as several items for children to touch and explore including a synthetic giant green anemone figure.
Docents and staff use the cart to speak with visitors about a myriad of topics and themes relating to Marine Protected Areas, including the importance of protecting the marine shoreline, local invertebrate diversity, beach safety, explaining how tides affect marine life, and increasing general awareness and understanding of MPAs.
Resources
- CDFW Central California MPA GuideOceanspaces Central Coast MPA Monitoring Page
- The Otter Project’s MPA Watch Program
- CMSF Central Coast Google MPA Tour
- Save our Shores Blog: Into the Blue
- Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center
- SiMon: Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network
- Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project Live Virtual Field Trips
- Get Into Your Sanctuary Events
SCMPA Gallery
Collaborative Co-Chairs
Lisa Uttal
Education and Outreach Specialist, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
lisa.uttal@noaa.gov
Nicole Crane
Executive Director, David H Smith Conservation Research Fellowship
Professor, Cabrillo College
Co-Lead, One People One Reef Marine stewardship organization
nicrane@cabrillo.edu
Krista Rogers
Program Manager, Save Our Shores
krista@saveourshores.org
Events
Projects
Lisa Uttal
Education and Outreach Specialist, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
lisa.uttal@noaa.gov
Biography
Lisa Uttal is the Outreach and Media Coordinator for NOAA’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. She has been doing science-based education and outreach for over 30 years. Her marine science research was in deepsea midwater biology. She is a communicator and has spent many years doing science based stewardship to protect the ocean ecosystem. She was the project manager for the development, design and construction of NOAA’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center in Santa Cruz, a gateway for educating the public about the sanctuary.
Krista Rogers
Program Manager, Save Our Shores
krista@saveourshores.org
Biography
Krista is a Santa Cruz local who grew up in Capitola and attended the University of California, Santa Cruz where she studied marine biology. She is the Program Manager for Save Our Shores where she manages the education, volunteer, and outreach programs the nonprofit engages communities in around Monterey Bay. Before joining Save Our Shores she was involved in youth programs at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, where she developed her passion for engaging people in marine science and connecting them with the ecosystems of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Nicole Crane
Executive Director, David H Smith Conservation Research Fellowship
Professor, Cabrillo College
Co-Lead, One People One Reef Marine stewardship organization
nicrane@cabrillo.edu
Biography
Nicole is a Senior Conservation Scientist and co-lead with One People One Reef and Executive Director of the David H Smith Conservation Research Fellowship at the Society for Conservation Biology. Her primary areas of conservation focus are on community-led coral reef conservation and management. She was the founder, PI, and Director of the National Science Foundation Center for Excellence in Marine Advanced Technology Education and PI/Executive Director for Camp SEA Lab. Nicole is an associate at the California Academy of Sciences, a National Geographic Explorer, and a Fellow National at the Explorers Club. She was a faculty and program director in the California Community College system for 27 years, and has been a faculty at Cabrillo College for 20 years.
Santa Cruz MPA Collaborative Members
This list is not meant to imply that each affiliated organization is participating in the collaborative at a formal level nor that each collaborative member is representing the official view of their affiliation. All voices and perspectives are welcome and are considered unique to the person sharing them.
- Amah Mutsun Tribal Band
- Bureau of Land Management – California Coastal Monument
- Bay Side Marine
- Blue Mind
- Cabrillo College
- California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program
- California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
- California Marine Sanctuary Foundation
- California Regional Environmental
- Education Community
Fiscal Sponsor
National Marine Sanctuary Foundation