By Max Perkins

As sea levels rise and storms and flooding intensify, it’s easy to feel hopeless about climate change. Unrelenting coastal hazards often seem like a problem bigger than us and beyond our control – for some of us, they even represent nature fighting back for all the harm we’ve done. The barriers to achieving resilience can feel insurmountable, especially when decision-makers and community groups have conflicting visions for a sustainable future and limited funding to get there. 

By Marria Peduto

 
“From deep dives into the ocean’s most fascinating creatures to gripping accounts of high-stakes exploration, resource extraction, and shipwrecks, this collection is sure to max out your library card and fill your shelves with unforgettable tales from the deep.”
 
As promised, part two of my “Stories from the Sea” reading roundup is full of recommendations for even the choosiest of readers. 

By Madison Gard

Spring is in full bloom here in Washington State, and it’s not just the cherry blossom trees coming to life. Coastal waters are, too, with blooms of a more dangerous kind. As temperatures rise and daylight stretches longer into the evening, Washington’s coastal waters are beginning to stir with microscopic life, some of which pose serious threats to marine ecosystems and human health. 

By Karina Thiel-Klare

 
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are a keystone species within Salish Sea ecosystems, maintaining the region’s biodiversity and serving as an indicator for overall ocean health. In Puget Sound, Washington, Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) are an iconic species readily recognized by locals and visitors alike. They serve as an ecotourism draw to the region and are widely beloved by the local community. 

By Beatrice Pickett

 
On a bright Friday afternoon in March, several SMEA peers and I convened at Seattle Center alongside what felt like thousands of fellow outraged Seattleites to protest the Trump administration’s policies against science. Ours was one of over 30 parallel Stand Up for Science rallies across the country on March 7th, 2025. Signs borne by the crowd expressed numerous grievances, including the Trump administration’s policies on public health and the environment, cuts to research funding, and the dismantlement of federal agencies. 

By Luke Weaver

 
“Non-stop!” we belted out, singing along to the Hamilton soundtrack playing at full volume from our Bluetooth speaker in the middle of the field. We collectively laughed and sang through the pain as we entered our third hour of harvesting strawberries, a grueling process of deciding between back, knee, or neck pain, where the only solace is occasionally popping a plump berry into your mouth. 

By Indra Behar

Of all the weird quirks and qualities of language, I always get a kick out of envisioning connotation as some sort of sublime magical power. Woven into every word is a panoply of emotions, history, and cultural associations converging to sculpt the particular shape it impresses into the mind. When two entries in a dictionary overlap in definition, connotation is what makes each word a unique encounter at the intersection of all of those feelings and imagery that tend to orbit it. 

By Marria Peduto

Read this if… 
 
Growing up in landlocked Indiana, I pored over National Geographic atlases and encyclopedias, fascinated by the natural world and how people around the globe interacted with the ocean. These reading materials offered a connection to the underwater world beyond my physical reach. Over twenty years later, my library of ocean literature has expanded to include marine science, memoirs from ocean royalty and explorers, climate science, maritime economics, poetry of the sea, zoology, anthropology of seafood, literary fiction, and more. 

By Carson Green

 
Over two thousand years ago, Taoist philosophers thought of music as “a potent cosmic force capable of expanding human intelligence and enhancing communion with the non-human world.” These ancient philosophers were some of the earliest knowledge practitioners on the important intersection of nature and music. This idea of music as an essential part of existence is why I find myself huddled at a desk writing this article. 

By Amie Kusch

 
Expanding the Conservation Toolbox: The Role of OECMs Alongside Protected Areas
Many people are familiar with the idea of a protected area—land or water areas set aside and kept as natural as possible, such as national parks and nature reserves. Protected areas are one of the most well-established conservation tools, playing a crucial role in protecting biodiversity. However, they often require significant political will, funding, and enforcement and do not always account for lands and waters that are effectively conserved outside of formal protection. 

By Rebecca Ballantyne

It’s a summer day near the mouth of the Columbia River in 1998. A cacophony of loud overlapping calls that sound like rusty see-saws dominate the bright afternoon. Interspersed between the louder calls are high-pitched whistles and peeps: Caspian tern chicks, begging for food. Small, grey, baseball-sized balls of fluff with bright orange bills, some nestling in underneath the wings of a parent, some vigorously running around the sandy colony pumping tiny, useless wings. 

By Beatrice Pickett

For two years before beginning graduate school, I had the great privilege of working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration. I worked out of EPA’s Region 1 office in Boston, implementing climate and air quality programs throughout New England. I joined EPA in Summer 2022, as the agency was coming back to life after the pandemic and the first Trump administration and as part of a wave of new hires to staff programs under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. 

By Anna Lewis

Killer whales (Orcinus Orca) were designated an endangered species in 2005 by the United States and have shown little to no improvement in population size in the intervening two decades since their listing. One of the most prominent populations of orcas is the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs) that inhabit the waters of the Salish Sea. With a range from Alaska to central California, these orcas are top predators that are not only significant to their ecosystems but to human cultures and economies as well. 

By Madison Gard

Naturally occurring reefs are found below the surface waters of Puget Sound. Although they might not resemble the quintessential colorful coral gardens found in the tropics, below the Salish Sea’s surface are submerged rock outcrops with complex crevices and alcoves that create suitable habitats for many forms of life. Algae and invertebrates such as anemones colonize the surface area of these rocks. 

By Zoe DeGrande

Cruise ships have an understandable appeal, promising passengers everything they need under one roof—bars, buffets, pools, activities to ditch their children at, entertainment, and the opportunity to travel to multiple tourist destinations quickly. For many potential “cruisers”,  a cruise ship vacation speaks to the consumer urge to maximize the bang for your buck, getting the ultimate all-in-one experience. However, it seems many people intuitively understand that cruises are not a sustainable industry with thousands of people aboard the cumulative 323 cruise ships 365 days a year, which requires a lot of resources to maintain smooth operation. 

By Isaac Olson

Whenever I enter a classroom for the first time, I always end up lingering in the doorway for just a moment, surveying the room. Not for very long—just enough to flit my eyes across the faces of those already inside and assess whether I will be alone.
 
One of the first defense mechanisms I learned growing up as a person of color was to take stock of how many other people of color were in any room I entered. 

By Karina Thiel-Klare

Overexploitation of natural resources is a growing problem globally. In the case of food production, many fish stocks are overfished, and intensive agriculture leads to biodiversity loss. Unsustainable resource use is harmful, but could dishing up invasive species at the dinner table be a tool to fight another threat to biodiversity? 
Invasive species cause great ecological and economic harm to the locations they infest, often creating direct and indirect consequences for native species.  

By Rebecca Ballantyne

It’s a typical mid-November day on Vashon Island, with overcast skies and a mild, intermittent, chattering rain. The rocky beach is narrow—at high tide parts of it will be impassable on foot. Mike Spranger, who I first met through a kelp monitoring training program, leads the way. After rounding the corner of a concrete wall and carefully stepping through a few fallen trees, I finally see it: the kelp farm! 

By Elyse Kelsey

Content warning: This article contains brief references to suicide.
American poet and author Sylvia Plath is widely regarded as a leading example of the confessional poetry movement. Confessional poets often ground their work in autobiographical events and connect these to subjects considered private or taboo for the period: family dynamics, trauma, mental illness, and suicide. My high school IB English Language and Literature teacher introduced me to Plath’s work and I immediately fell in love with her writing. 

By Marisa Campbell

I, like all of you reading Currents (I assume), have an affinity for the sea. Its vastness humbles me, its power inspires me, and the life that brims beneath it opens up my imagination to the seemingly infinite ways an organism can experience life on Earth.
The experience that captivates me most is that of a whale. Traversing the globe with their kin, oscillating between the poles and the tropics, living with the seasons, bellowing songs along the way, through it all with sentience.