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On Monday October 22^nd, Dalhousie University welcomed the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, to campus. During his visit, the Minister had the opportunity to demo new Ocean School technology, spearheaded by Dr. Boris Worm and to tour lab space in Dal’s Steele Ocean Science Building. During this tour, the Minister learned about the work happening in Dr. Doug Wallace’s CERC.OCEAN lab from Research Associate, Dr. Dariia Atamanchuk. Dr. Atamanchuk explained the novel work the team has been doing, particularly in the North Atlantic Ocean with some of the equipment and technology in the laboratory and container bay; this included showing the Minister some laboratory instruments, two containerized labortories that are sent to sea, and the SeaCycler profiler that was deployed in the Labrador Sea for a year. He also spoke with the Lead of OFI Technical Team, Richard Davis about Dal’s ocean gliders, and was able to see two of the Slocum Gliders the team is currenly operating. 

The tours were capped off with a public chat on ocean health. Moderated by Dr. Megan Bailey, the Minister, Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s Regional Science Director Dr. Alain Vezina, and Dal’s Associate Vice-President Research (Ocean) Dr. Anya Waite engaged in a panel discussion focussed on making the ocean cleaner, safer and healthier. Broadcast on Facebook Live, the discussion touched on a broad range of topics including how student researchers can contribute to ocean health.