Process Log Entry: 9/7 9/12

Goals From Last Week

The previous week I wanted to have my topic proposal finished, which I did do and it was
approved, because Ms. Bullis did not hand it back to me. I did start searching for ways that
civilization has impacted marine life and I found a really good article from the Fisheries and
Aquaculture organization (this was also the article I annotated in class on Wednesday) on how
overfishing destroys the balance of ecosystems, because if there are less fish then there is too
much competition over food with the higher level consumers and they begin to die. The article
also talked about how blast fishing, which is the use of explosives to stun fish for easy captures,
easily and quickly destroys coral reefs and sea grasses. The article also taught me that ghost
fishing, which is when abandoned fishing equipment keeps fishing after it is dumped in the
ocean, causes huge problems for scuba divers and marine animals. I also began looking for
mentors by searching the faculty of the University of Houston for professors who study in
marine biology or marine ecology, and I have found two professors and I have started my draft to
email them
Mentor
Currently, I still do not have anyone who has agreed to become my mentor, but as stated above I
have begun to email two professors at the University of Houston about if they would wish to
help me with this project. However I only started the draft on Thursday so it is not complete, but
I hope to have the email finished by Monday.
Research
This week I began to search articles that relate to my research. As stated in my goals from last
week I found the article from the Fisheries and Aquaculture Organization, which described how
fisheries use destructive techniques such has blast fishing or overfishing which destroys
ecological food chains and the surrounding environment of the blast sight. The article then
mentioned how the Law of The Sea, written by the United Nations (which I later looked up and
found a pdf of), has regulations on what fisheries can and cannot do. The article then when on
about how when fisheries dump excess dead fish into the ocean, chemical levels rise which
causes oxygen depletion and an increase in marine scavengers. In addition, from what I saw of
the Law of the Sea pdf (because it was 200 pages) it goes in depth about things such as piracy
and laws about foreign ocean travel.
The first article that I found was from the Center for Ocean Solutions Organization and it
helped to give me a broad overview of marine terms such as blast fishing, which then led me to
the FAO article. The article also gave statistics on marine habitat destruction, threats, and
environmental impact. This article was really good about helping me find a starting point in my
research
All of these articles can be used in my research paper, because they directly answer and give
examples of how civilization has started to affect marine populations.
Center for Ocean Solutions :
http://www.centerforoceansolutions.org/?q=projects/pacific-ocean-initiative/major-threats-
pacific-ocean/habitat-destruction
FAO Overfishing Article:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y4773e/y4773e05.htm
The Law of Sea
http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf

Goals for Next Week
Next week I want to have finished emailing the two professors from the University of Houston
my mentor request. If they have not replied by Thursday during TPSP I will search for another
new mentor and maybe look at professors from Rice University. I am going to search for
answers to my questions and interests from the FAO Article, some of which were: overfishing,
ghost fishing, and the loss of sea urchins in Kenya, the destruction of seagrasses in the
Mediterranean and oxygen depletion in New Zealand. Then I will annotate an article I find about
one of these topics on Wednesday.