Brooklyn, NY, July 10, 2020 - New York Sea Grant's Coastal Resilience Specialist Helen Cheng recently took part in a virtual student town hall forum for BioBus, an organization whose mission is to help minority, female, and low-income K - 12 and college students in New York City discover, explore, and pursue science 

Cheng, whose position is a partnership with the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, was a guest scientist on the topic of "New York City waterways" on the July 9th discussion. She was joined during the hour-long town hall by Rob Buchanan of Billion Oyster Project.

The audience, primarily made up of elementary and middle school students, made this quite the interactive talk. Students submitted a number of questions that Cheng answered live, including an explanation of "what is high tide flooding?" [time-stamped 21:21]. 

Recently, Cheng produced a "fast draw" video on high tide flooding, which typically occurs a few times a year during the new and/or full moons, when the moon, Earth, and sun are aligned, causing a stronger gravitational force, resulting in higher than usual tide levels. 

More Info: New York Sea Grant and SRIatJB

The Science and Resilience Institute @ Jamaica Bay (SRIJB) is a research center focused on enhancing environmental, social, and economic resilience in communities of Jamaica Bay funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the City of New York.

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University in Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly. Our program also produces an occasional e-newsletter,"NOAA Sea Grant's Social Media Review," via its blog, www.nyseagrant.org/blog.