tion service was reorganized as the New England Marine Resources Informa- 

 tion Program which now is operating to encourage and strengthen marine 

 activities and industries in a six-State region. Under the Texas A&M Sea 

 Grant, university extension advisory specialists are assisting shrimp fisher- 

 man by conducting courses to demonstrate new methods and technology such 

 as the use of electric trawls. 



Sea Grant project support activities in fiscal year 1969 included the addi- 

 tion of a new education program in ocean engineering and four programs 

 to train technicians. Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

 developed course materials in ocean engineering, resulting in a series of 

 published notes on such subjects as ocean engineering structures; stability 

 and motion control of ocean vehicles; and water, air, and interface vehicles. 

 At Florida Atlantic University, undergraduates in ocean engineering alter- 

 nated 6 months of academic work with 6 months of employment by co- 

 operating ocean industries. Students at Cape Fear Technical Institute work- 

 ing aboard the institute's training ship participated in Project BOMEX. 

 Among the individual Sea Grant projects sponsored last year were the de- 

 termination of the fishery potential of the California spiny lobster; eco- 

 nomic feasibility of a submerged buoyant pipeline for transporting natural 

 gas through a deep ocean area; design of a high efficiency convective heat 

 transfer system for deep submergence applications; and management and 

 utilization of estuarine resources. 



Awards of coherent project support were granted to the Virginia Institute 

 of Marine Science, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and 

 Humboldt State College, California, for broadly based research programs 

 related to marine problems in their regions. Other grants were made to the 

 Dade County, Fla., Board of Public Instruction and the Washington Tech- 

 nical Institute for development of educational and training opportunities for 

 underprivileged youths. 



The Next Few Years 



Looking to the near future, plans for Sea Grant include strengthening 

 existing mechanisms for the selection and review of projects and institutions, 

 expanding the number of awards, and improving the dissemination of in- 

 formation about Sea Grant policies and activities. In addition, consideration 

 will be given to establishing new graduate education programs for ocean 

 engineers and, on an experimental basis, for business administration and 

 international affairs specialists to acquaint them with issues and opportunities 

 in marine-related fields. 



ESSA and NSF will continue to assess the feasibility of establishing a co- 

 ordinated program of data and information services, comparable to ESSA's 

 State Climatologist Program, in order to maximize the efTectiveness and 

 utility of Sea Grant advisory activities. To test this concept, ESSA has placed 

 an oceanographer-meteorologist at the University of Rhode Island to en- 

 courage the application of environmental data on sea-air interaction. 



Through its accomplishments to date and those foreseen in the coming 

 years, the Sea Grant Program is rapidly becoming the cornerstone of a vig- 

 orous partnership of Government and the private sector which is mobilizing 

 new resources, techniques, and talent in support of national marine science 

 objectives. 



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