Last week, students from 39 different schools, ranging in age from 2nd grade to high school, partnered with 40 environmental groups and waded out basically all at once into the Indian River Lagoon at various points all along Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, Brevard and Volusia counties. Their mission? To collect data to create a snapshot of the health of the Lagoon.
MW: “The Indian River Lagoon is a complex system and the problems that it faces are not easy to understand.”
That’s Missy Weiss. She’s…
MW: “…the executive director of Sea a Difference.”
Sea in this case is spelled S-E-A.
MW: “And I am also the director of citizen science and education with ORCA which is Ocean Research and Conservation Association.”
She organized this enormous effort called a Day in the Life of the Indian River Lagoon, now in its 2nd year.
MW: “And so the Day in the Life is a participatory research project – a citizen science project – where students learn more about the Lagoon and how their sampling site is a small piece to a larger puzzle.”
Like, one issue that a certain location on the Lagoon may be experiencing may be very different from another just 5 miles or even 100 miles away may be.
MW: “And so what this day does is it provides an opportunity for the students to connect with the Lagoon. The way that we bridge that connection and to make that personal connection for the students is through science research..
We climb over the jetty rocks behind Fort Pierce Yacht Club and march through grasses down to the sandy shoreline and meet a group of students from St. Lucie West Centennial High School.
Group: “I’m Shaina… Tarrianne. Aliya. I’m Farrah.”
They are seining – which is pulling a fishing net that hangs vertically in the water, with floats at the upper edge and sinkers at the lower.
TOC: What are some of the things you found?
S: “So we found 10 Mojarra…”
That’s a type of fish.
S: The biggest one was 5.5 centimeters. And then the Lane Snapper that we found earlier was 2.5 inches.”
TOC: And then you set them free.
Group: YES
They’re paired with a professional scientist.
BG: “My name’s Bridget Gerovac. I’m a research associate with ORCA. So, its really exciting to be able to show students what I do for a living and to (kind of) expose them to real world science.”
Further down the shoreline we meet…
VE: “My name is Vincent Encomio. I’m with University of Florida and the Florida Sea Grant Program. So right now, what we’re doing is we are characterizing the conditions at this site. So, they are doing currents. We’re gonna do wind direction, speed, all those kinds of things. And then we are also tracking the change in the tides.”
VE & Group: We have to look at our marker. Do you think the tide is coming in or going out? How many minutes? Yeah, 20 second left. 20 seconds?
Another group of Centennial students is pounding a PVC tube down into the sand right at the shoreline to collect a soil sample.
(sound of pounding)
They are…
Group: “Gabby. Izayah. Santiago. Felix.”
They’re paired with…
DM: Debbie McManus with St Lucie County 4H.
DM & Group: That is going in a lot easier isn’t it. Yes. All right. So, when you take it out, keep your hand over the top so it acts like a suction.
Here’s Missy Weiss again.
MW: I think the thing to remember is that a Day in the Life is really, really valuable but it is a moment in time. It’s giving you a report card of what the environmental health is like at this moment in time. - And so, you have to look at all those moments in time over a longitudinal time period to really be able to draw any kind of conclusions or make assumptions about a specific location.
Learn more here: https://seaadifference.org/a-day-in-the-life
VE & Group: That’s our tide marker. It’s gone down.