Part of what gets accomplished on the Tacoma Shoreline Survey is a real-time count of the debris that is found on city beaches during the clean-up process. Groups that will be doing the actual work will be tallying their results on a hard copy form that will be collected when they bring in their trash but they will also be using a smart phone app to connect their findings directly with NOAA.

The app is easy to use and fairly intuitive but like anything else, it helps to get familiar with how it works before you have to use it. We’ll be going over how it functions and the specific data that we’ll be looking for when we get together for beach assignments and pizza on May 17th, the night before the Survey, but if you take a minute to download the app and look it over now, that would probably be helpful. And, if you’re out on a beach between now and then, open it up and give it a whirl.

Technology.