Florida Marine Science (8th)
Dates: 4/4-4/10
Location: Domestic
Price Range: $3,400-3, 800
Theme: Science & Culture
Faculty Contact: Noah Ching, Krista Kelly
MarineLab Environmental Education Center is a non-profit organization founded in 1970 to promote ocean conservation through education, research, and collaboration in Key Largo, Florida. We are partnering with MarineLab to bring 8th-grade students to experience the biology, geology, oceanography, and biodiversity in this beautiful, amazing, and fragile sub-tropical marine ecosystem. Students will be swimming, snorkeling, performing marine science labs, researching seagrass, mangroves, coral, plankton, and reef fish, and taking field trips via foot and boat while staying in dormitories at MarineLab. After Marine Lab, Key West will be our home base for a night while doing our other Marine Bio centered activities.
Outside of Marine lab, we will plan on a guided ‘wet walk’ through a cypress dome swamp in Everglades National Park, spending time at The Turtle Hospital in Marathon Key and adventuring in Biscayne National Park, where students will kayak or stand-up paddleboard in its protected waters with the potential to see sea turtles, manatees, and baby sharks. This is a fun yet rigorous EBC experience with extended exposure to salt water, sun, and the outdoors.
- Students and families should be aware that this experience includes:
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- Extended time outdoors in hot, humid, and sunny coastal conditions with frequent water-based activities
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- Swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, and other physical activities in marine environments that require attentiveness to safety and instruction
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- Travel by boat and in variable weather conditions
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- Hands-on participation in fieldwork and laboratory investigations involving marine organisms and ecosystems
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- Shared dormitory-style accommodations and group meals at the MarineLab center
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- Limited access to technology and the need for personal responsibility, adaptability, and teamwork in a field science setting