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The logo is both cautionary and cheerful.
The image shows a house on stilts with sea grass underneath next to a triple strand of waves. It was designed by fourth-year Northeastern University student Meredith McGowan as the signature logo for Cape Cod Coastal Resilience Week.
Its message is designed to highlight “our ability to bounce back and be strong in the face of climate change and adverse weather events,” McGowan says.
McGowan combined her major in marine biology and minor in studio art to design and utilized both studies as part of her co-op with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
“My part was promoting public awareness, brand awareness of the campaign.”
She also helped plan events and designed other logos for merchandise distributed during the weeklong event in June at the end of her semester-long co-op, in addition to painting cornhole boards with waves for the kickoff event at Mashpee Commons.
Experts gave talks about strengthening and protecting homes, making investments in tying down roofs, stabilizing foundations and elevating structures to reduce flood risk, McGowan says.
“I had shown (WHOI officials) my portfolio beforehand, so they knew I was a visual artist,” McGowan says. “I probably spent a third of my time designing merchandise or logos.”
“The work environment was super supportive,” she says.
WHOI provided her with housing in the village of Woods Hole, close to the ferry terminal. “When I talked to my friend on the phone, every once in a while you could hear the boat horn blaring,” McGowan says.
After graduation McGowan plans to pursue a master’s of science degree and work in a lab doing research. “My main interest is definitely deep sea cephalopods,” she says, as evidenced by her phone case decorated with tiny octopus.
McGowan says her love of the ocean began young. “I joke that I watched too much ‘SpongeBob’ as a kid. That’s why I’m a marine biologist now.”
She worked as an exhibit guide at the National Aquarium’s “touch pools” in Baltimore during the summer between high school and college.
Her job included providing visitors with fun facts about the horseshoe crabs, skates and stingray living in the pool, showing them how to use a “two-finger” touch on the animals’ back “and not flip them over and bother them.”
“The same rule applied at the jellyfish pool. Basically you just touch them gently on their back. Most of the time they are pretty chill about it,” she says.
McGowan, who took a summer course in scientific writing and is enrolled in a course on scientific communication this spring, says the purpose of WHOI’s Sea Grant program, which is funded by NOAA, is to make information about the ocean and the climate accessible to the general public.
Accessible also means hands on and fun. Resilience Week activities included lessons in preparing for storms and using an app called My Coast to publicly upload photos of floods and storms as well as pub night trivia contests on the theme of coastal resilience.
McGowan also saw that erosion on Cape Cod is no joke.
The start of her co-op coincided with an early January storm, after which she saw “entire roads, parking lots and beaches flooded, completely washed up.”
“At one time I was at a traffic circle, and every single road out of the circle was at least knee deep with water,” McGowan says. “There was definitely a lot of water damage on the sides of houses and foundations that were cracked.”
For residents of shoreline communities, the ocean environment “has an impact on their everyday lives,” McGowan says. “This is happening in their backyards.”