May 23, 2019  

The University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant College Program (Hawai‘i Sea Grant) is proud to announce that, out of 12,000 entries received from all 50 states and 5 continents, our Voice of the Sea television series has received five 2019 Telly Awards for episodes focused on environmental and cultural issues in Hawai‘i.

Voice of the Sea won two bronze Telly awards in the Educational Institution category for “Designing Future Coastal Communities” and “Visiting the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology.” These episodes highlight the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s School of Architecture and the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology. Both episodes delve into the cutting-edge work the university is doing to understand sustainability, community resilience, and tropical marine ecosystems.

Voice of the Sea also won two bronze awards for “Adapting Culture to Climate Change” and “Hidden Benefits of Farming Kalo” in the Cultural category. These episodes explore how cultural practitioners, university faculty, community members, and non-profit organizations are working together to understand the changes in our environment, and how centuries-old traditions are critical to optimizing today’s food production and water quality.

Lastly, Voice of the Sea won a bronze award for “Water Resources Research” in the Education category. The episode features the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Hawai‘i, and how its research is furthering our understanding of the unique water and wastewater management issues in Hawai‘i and the Pacific.

This Saturday and Sunday, May 25 and 26, Voice of the Sea will highlight EXPORTS (EXport Processes in the Ocean from Remote Sensing) researcher Dr. Brian Popp, an oceanographer with the University of Hawai‘i, along with 100s of colleagues from more than 20 institutions across the country.

EXPORTS is an epic research project funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation to study the ocean’s carbon cycle. The aim of the research is to understand how carbon moves from the atmosphere to the deep ocean in order to more accurately predict future climate conditions.

“The carbon humans are putting into the atmosphere is warming Earth,” Mike Sieracki, program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences, noted in a NASA press release. “Much of that carbon eventually finds its way into the ocean and is transported to the deep ocean, where it is sequestered and will not return to the atmosphere for a long time. This project will help us understand the biological and chemical processes that remove the carbon, and establish a foundation for monitoring these processes as the climate changes.”

Planning for the expedition has taken over a decade to coordinate scientists, satellites, remote underwater vehicles, and two research vessels. The School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology’s (SOEST) Dr. Popp is leading one of the expedition’s projects, in collaboration with former SOEST Young Investigator Hilary Close, now a professor at the University of Miami.

To watch the 30-sec Promo of the episode visit vimeo.com/330700174  or https://youtu.be/AKPl_QHEKyw. To learn more about EXPORTS and view the first EXPORTS episode which premiered in April, visit http://seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/exports-sally-ride/

Voice of the Sea airs on TV Saturdays at 4:00 pm and Sundays at 5:30 pm, on K5 The Home Team (KFVE). It is a signature project of the University of Hawai‘i Sea Grant Center for Marine Science Education. To watch full episodes or learn more about Voice of the Sea visit voiceofthesea.org.

The Telly Awards were established in 1979 to honor excellence and support creativity in local, regional, and cable TV programming. Sabrina Dridje, managing director of the Telly Awards noted in a release “With record-shattering number of entries, this year’s Telly Award entrants truly represent the most innovative video and television work being made for all screens.”