Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation

The Sandin Lab has been working with state-of-the-art technology that captures coral reefs as a 3D image at a spatial scale that has never before been captured. The objective of capturing these images on such a large-scale is to monitor the growth of the coral reefs over time and understand their dynamics from a whole ecosystem perspective. I am expanding the audience that this technology currently reaches by using these large-scale 3D models as an education and outreach tool in the hopes that it increases ocean stewardship and awareness. This idea was tested on the island of Curacao with three different user groups: dive shop owners, dive tourists, and the local community. The local community consisted of the Carmabi Marine Education Center and the International School of Curacao. By talking with the different user groups around the island, I gauged general interest in the photomosaics and gathered information on how each user group could find use for the photomosaics. There is potential for the dive shop owners and dive tourists to use the photomosaics in the future once the advancement of technology allows us to hurdle some of the current challenges we face.  However, both of these local communities will now be incorporating the 3D photomosaics as an education module into their curriculum.