Posted by Sharon Schendel on Oct 29, 2017
Andy Stern, founder of the Lost Bird Project, which produces Smartfins to monitor ocean health
A bronze sculpture of a Passenger Pigeon, part of the Lost Bird project that seeks to help individuals connect with the earth through art (Photo credit, The Smithsonian Institution)
The inner workings of a Smartfin (photo credit:  AAAS)
 
One day, and he said it truly was one day, Andy Stern had an epiphany. He remembered thinking: “I know why I’m here.”  After 30 years of treating patients as a neurologist, he wanted to address one of the biggest threats to human health- climate change.   Andy felt that one of the reasons that humans are so prone to ignore the dangers of climate change is that they are disconnected from the earth and the environment.    
 
He founded the Lost Bird project, which seeks to help people connect more deeply with the earth through art.  His brother-in-law, Todd McGrain, a sculptor, created large bronze sculptures of five now-extinct bird species:  the Great Auk, the Labrador Duck, the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parakeet, and the Heath Hen.  The sculptures were placed at the site where the last known member of the species was seen in the wild.  There is a film documenting the project, and the sculptures were also on display at the Smithsonian Institution. The Lost Bird project has a new film in progress, “Elephant Path- Njaia Njoku” which was submitted for exhibition at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival.
 
Around five years ago Andy conceived the idea for Smartfin, a way to gather real time data for ocean chemistry. Although there is extensive research being conducted on the deep ocean, because surf zones are dynamic and high energy due to wave action, there was a gap in data collection for these areas. Smartfin seeks to fill that gap. The Smartfin can be fitted to a typical surfer board. Embedded within the fin are electronics that sample ocean pH, temperature, salinity, and other parameters. Once a surfer has finished his/her sets, s/he offloads the Smartfin data onto a smartphone, and the data are then uploaded onto servers. The resulting data are open access and available to oceanographers across the world. The beta-testing is now complete, and scaled-up manufacturing is underway to expand the availability of Smartfins to surfers.  During the development phase, Smartfin partnered with scientists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and will now enlist the help of the Surfrider Foundation to distribute Smartfins, free of cost, to chapter members.  Using this approach, Smartfins can be deployed to many different areas to help scientists learn more about ocean chemistry in the surf zone. The Smartfins will cost around $200 to manufacture, which is significantly less than other technologies used to monitor ocean health, such as floats in the Argo network. Through Smartfin and the data gathered by surfing citizen scientists, Andy and the Lost Bird project will be closer to achieving the goal of increasing connectedness between humans and the ocean, and promoting meaningful action to slow climate change.