Sarah Onyshko ’12
learning never ends Biology students at South Brunswick High School can consider themselves lucky to have Victoria Hoff ’05 as their teacher. After transferring from Virginia Tech, Hoff graduated from UNCW with a bachelor’s degree in marine biology then started work toward a master’s degree. However, after just a year, Hoff decided to switch gears and studied for her licensure in education. Her goal as a teacher is to bring current, applicable topics to the students in her classroom. She wants them doing the science and investigating the world, especially when the local ecosystems are so diverse and readily available. So, to uphold her goal and gain further hands-on experience that she has missed greatly since leaving UNCW, Hoff applied for a grant that Brunswick County offers a few teachers every summer to participate in research around the country for up to a week. She was ecstatic when luck brought her back to her alma mater for four days to work with professor Lawrence Cahoon as he wrapped up two years of research, collecting sediment samples for microbiology living in the surf zone sand. The samples also served as a reference baseline in the event oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill would have reached the North Carolina coastline. The chance to do real lab and fieldwork again had Hoff excited to return to school in the fall and share her experiences with her classes. She adamantly believes that all teachers, science teachers especially, should remain up-to-date on the developments in the world and remember they are never done learning themselves. “They need to get out in this dynamic world; ‘facts’ we know are never set in stone,” Hoff said. “After all, Pluto’s not a planet anymore. Science is not perfect and is constantly evolving.”
Amanda Kahn (left) ’04M, ’08 Ph.D. is a visiting professor at the University of North Florida who returned to Wilmington this summer for some postdoctorial research. She is studying the productivity of surf zone phytoplankton. She says that the research project she has designed with UNCW professor Lawerence Cahoon will be the “first research insitu measurement” for the surf zone phytoplankton and could open new methods and protocol for marine biology research of this understudied ecosystem. Also, along with Victoria Hoff (right), she helped Cahoon complete his sediment sampling research funded by N.C. SeaGrant.