Keep Learning: Science Webinars, Films, and Home Education Resources

A growing list of live and recorded science webinars, films, and home educational resources so you can keep learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AFS Webinar and Video Series

AFS Virtual Spring Conference: This free virtual conference provided those with canceled meetings a forum to present their science. The series ran April 16 – May 7, 2020. Recordings of the presentations are available (AFS member login required): Virtual Spring Conference.

Recorded AFS Webinars: All previous AFS webinars have been recorded and are available to view at your convenience (AFS member log in required).

AFS Annual Meeting Plenary Talks: Recordings of plenary talks for the past 7 years (dating back to the 2012 Annual Meeting in St. Paul).

Wisconsin Chapter Webinar Series: Recorded weekly webinars from the AFS Wisconsin Chapter.

Fish Health Online Seminar Series: The AFS Fish Health Section’s Recruitment and Student Involvement Committee has organized an online fish health seminar series held during the Summer of 2020 and continuing in 2021 that aims to showcase the work of student and post-doctoral researchers. Everyone is welcome to join the conversation weekly via Zoom! Presentations will consist of 20 minute talks followed by 10 minute Q&A and take place on Friday afternoons from 12-1 pm CDT.

Third International Catfish Symposium: In February 2020, the North Central and Southern Divisions put on Catfish 2020: The Third International Catfish Symposium immediately preceding the Southern Division annual meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas. The meeting was well received with 198 attendees delivering 74 oral presentations and 17 poster presentations over the three-day symposium. Our AV committee recorded these presentations and recently completed editing. These are free to watch and represent the current status of catfish management and research at an international scale.

Other Webinar Series

National Conservation Training Center Webinar Gallery: Webinar recordings are available to federal and non-federal audiences, including all DOI bureaus and partners, at no cost. View the Webinar Schedule to learn about upcoming webinars. Webinar series that are ongoing and have an active schedule also have a Schedule link that provides information about upcoming webinars.

U.S. Geological Survey’s Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database Seminar Series: The U.S. Geological Survey’s Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database presents a seminar series focused on providing undergraduate students and early career scientists insight into federal career options as well as how various federal agencies work on invasive species issues nationwide. Wednesday and Fridays at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.

NWFSC Monster Seminar Jam: The NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center’s Monster Seminar Jam is a weekly seminar with presentations by center scientists and guest speakers, and touches on variety of research fields, including landscape ecology, community ecology, genetics, wildlife biology, systematics, marine ecology, conservation biology, population biology and numerical modeling. The NWFSC Monster Seminar Jam is also part of the OneNOAA Science Discussion Seminar Series, a joint effort by several NOAA seminar partners to pool seminars of common interest to help share science and management information and to promote constructive dialogue between scientists, educators, and resource managers.

DEEP Connections (Developing Engagement through Existing Pipeline Connections) Lecture Series: Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s DEEP Connections series of lectures explores the many intersections of diversity and science by highlighting the amazing scientific endeavors of traditionally underrepresented and marginalized scholars who are also advocates, actively engaged in advancing equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the fields of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences. Join us for an exciting and informative discussion about their work and their EDI-related efforts.

National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Seminar Series: Advancing Ecology and Environmental Data Science for a More Just and Equitable Future: This seminar series was motivated by recent conversations about how NCEAS can foster diversity and inclusion within our scientific community, while also designing research questions and approaches to promote environmental justice and equity across our broader community. The speakers will share their research approaches and findings as they relate to the intersections of ecology, environmental data science, equity, and environmental justice.

Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP) Emerging Technologies Information Sessions: Are you an aquatic monitoring professional, project manager, field data collector, or data manager? Are you interested in emerging technologies in aquatic monitoring for data collection, data management, and data visualization? Then you will want to check out the Emerging Technologies Information Sessions (ETIS) webinar series running October 2020 – February 2021. PNAMP and StreamNet have teamed up to host a series of webinars on various topics related to emerging technologies for monitoring and data management. Each month will focus on one topic and include three or four virtual sessions with expert speakers from the field. Sessions will be recorded and posted to PNAMP’s YouTube Channel.

University of Washington Bevan Series on Sustainable Fisheries: This year’s theme is “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Fishery and Aquatic Sciences” and there is an excellent line-up of speakers planned.

2020-2021 World Large River and Delta Systems Source-to-Sink Online Talk Series: Wednesdays & Fridays at US Eastern 9:00 am.

FAO eLearning Academy: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization offers more than 300 multilingual e-learning courses, free of charge, as a global public good through a collaborative effort involving over 200 partners throughout the world. The overall objective of the FAO e-learning Academy is to strengthen the human capital, through the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competences, in order to generate competent professionals able to face the global challenges. Certification granted by FAO, by passing the final scenario-based performance evaluation, is now associated to the FAO e-learning courses.

Global Swimways Webinar Marathon: In this special 24-hour webinar marathon on May 14, over 50 local, national and global experts leaders on this issue talked about global swimways, fish species population status’ and trends. In total, there were nine sessions of 1-2 hours each with a break in between each session. The webinar sessions were designed to accommodate different time zones and continents and most of presentations are available as recordings.

Lake Conservation Webinar Blitz: Upcoming and archived webinars from the Midwest Glacial Lakes Partnership.

Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office Webinar Series: Hosted by NCTC, the goal is to promote communication of applied skills and technologies for accomplishing the work of the USFWS FWC Offices focused on fish, mussels, crayfish, habitat and other aquatic resources. Presentations can be given independently or organized into subject-specific symposia. This series provides an additional communication outlet for any presentation, including existing conference presentations, for the benefit of continued learning and gaining resource contacts with wide geographic appeal. Examples may include invasive species management, stream survey techniques, novel fish-gear development, landscape management successes, concepts in modeling, etc.

Conservation Science Webinar Series: The Conservation Science Webinar Series from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service aims to communicate recent advancements in the field of conservation, ranging from emerging issues to technological advancements to pertinent scientific discoveries. This series targets biologists or natural resource managers interested in staying informed about the most up-to-date science by engaging with experts in the field.

Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center – Actionable Science Webinars: The Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC) offers both skills-building webinar series and individual applied science webinars.

Southeast CASC and the South Atlantic Conservation Blueprint Team – Spring/Summer Science Series:  These webinars will highlight some of the SE CASC funded science projects relevant to conservation throughout the Southeast and South Atlantic region.

Diversity and the Environment Webinar Series: From the Antioch University New England Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience, the diversity webinar series will provide education on diversity in environmental studies and promote the participation of women, people of color, and other minority groups in the environmental field.

OneNOAA Science Seminars: A joint effort by several NOAA seminar partners to help share science and climate seminars and information across NOAA and its constituents. Watch a recording of AFS member Ray Hilborn’s recent talk on The Status of Global Fish Stocks and the Role of Fisheries Management (free Adobe Connect download required).

Environmental Evidence Summit Monthly Webinars: A monthly webinar series to showcase the content that was to be presented at EES2020 in Ottawa. The entire webinar series will be freely available and recordings will be posted online following each session. Organized by the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE), which seeks to promote and deliver evidence syntheses on issues of greatest concern to environmental policy and practice as a public service.

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Live Video Programs: We are dedicated to inspiring people of all ages to better understand the natural world and our place in it, by instilling a sense of wonder and responsibility through exhibitions, programs, and online resources. Webinar series include the Expert Is Online, Natural History at Home for Families, Fossil Fridays, Science How, and Teacher Tuesdays.

Film Festivals

Fisheries Strong: A news-style program reporting on fisheries conservation projects by several fisheries agencies around the U.S., produced by ITN in association with the American Fisheries Society.

2020 AFS Virtual Film Festival:  15 fisheries films divided into 2 sessions. Session 1 is dedicated to highlighting stories in the world of environmental conservation, restoration, and the partnerships which make it all possible. Session two explores fisheries migration and waterway connectivity.

National Fish Habitat Partnership Film Festival: Films shown at the American Fisheries Society’s joint conference with The Wildlife Society in Reno in 2019.

#LakeEffects Film Series: A five-part series hosted by Michigan Sea Grant and sponsored by Great Lakes Now and the University of Michigan Great Lakes Theme Semester.

The Ocean We Love: Video collection assembled by NOAA’s Ocean Today educational program.

DC Environmental Film Festival: Many of the 2020 DCEFF films, along with movies from festivals in previous years, are available to view online.

For Kids

NOAA Live! Alaska: A weekly series of interactive webinars, aimed at Alaska students in grades 2-8 (but of interest to all ages!). We will feature NOAA scientists, educators and partners to explore NOAA’s work in Alaska. Learn about current research. Connect to what’s going on in your communities. Join us to ask questions to our presenters and learn more about weather, oceanography, marine life, fisheries and more in Alaska!

NASA Climate Kids: Launched in 2010, NASA’s Climate Kids website tells the story of our changing planet through the eyes of the NASA missions studying Earth. Targeting upper-elementary-aged children, the site is full of games, activities and articles that make climate science accessible and engaging.

Earth School: In response to this education crisis, UNEP and TED-Ed – with the support of an incredible array of educators and partner organizations – launched Earth School, 30 days of nature-focused content and environmental adventures for learners of all ages. Each Quest consists of a discovery video and quiz, combined with a series of engaging learning resources. Earth School learners are invited to check out additional content to watch, read, teach, do and share, all curated by environmental experts.

H.O.M.E.S. at Home: Longing to take the family to the Great Lakes, but not able to get to the shore? This series of fun-filled, family-friendly videos is jam-packed full of Great Lakes fun facts, activity suggestions for your family, and daily challenges. Videos are live streamed on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. – 11 a.m. EDT. The videos are also recorded, closed captioned, and added to a YouTube page.

NOAA Home Education Resources: Here’s a quick roundup of NOAA’s most popular educational resources to help you safely hunker down while learning about the ocean and atmosphere, including videos, podcasts, courses, tutorials, and apps.

Sea Grant Education at Home: A collection of state Sea Grant sites dedicated to providing educational resources for teachers, parents and students.

Leo’s Fishheads: TVOKids programs (only available to viewers in Canada) are developed for every young learner and cover virtually all Ontario Curriculum areas for Grades JK-5. TVO-produced children’s content is built in collaboration with educational consultants and classroom-tested to ensure specific educational objectives are met.

Online Ocean: Educators and animal experts at Ocean Wise and the Vancouver Aquarium have compiled these resources for kids to learn to care for the ocean – and the animals in it – from the comfort of your living room.

Heal the Bay Knowledge Drops: Heal the Bay is an environmental nonprofit dedicated to making the coastal waters and watersheds of Greater Los Angeles safe, healthy and clean. They are offering a new interactive science education series “Knowledge Drops,” where a team of scientists, experts, and advocates explores the water world and offers fun lessons about the marine environment. Each session is about 1-hour long and includes a live presentation, Q&A, polls, and videos. This webinar series is generally geared for 3rd – 8th grade students, but all ages are welcome.

Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Facebook Live Conservation Education Sessions: Teachers and students can continue to receive fish and wildlife conservation programming normally taught in the classroom. Conservation educators with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife resources host special Facebook Live sessions at 1pm (Eastern) weekdays.

NAMEPA Parent Survival Series: The North American Marine Environment Protection Association provides weekly activities for students K-12 that will not only enrich your child’s education, but also broadens their interest in the marine environment.

Email suggestions for other webinar and educational series to be listed to [email protected].