K12 Education

Educational Field Experiences for K12 Audiences

The Grand Bay NERR's K-12 onsite education program is currently in a building phase that will correlate with the construction of the new interpretive center. Due to Hurricane Katrina, we only have limited facilities for onsite instruction of younger students; however, we are able to schedule a few field experiences for high school students when the teacher of the group is willing to work closely with us before and during the field experience.

The goal of the reserve's education program is to provide field experiences that engage both the students and the teachers. Most programs are designed to demonstrate the importance of estuaries and their associated biodiversity. Field experiences often involve pontoon or canoe aquatic tours to a maritime forest or an American Indian midden or terrestrial tours to a pine savanna to learn about fire ecology and carnivorous plants.

The reserve shares a K12 Specialist with the University of Southern Mississippi's J.L. Scott Marine Education Center (MEC) in order to promote coordination between and prevent overlap in our programs. This specialist is assigned to our facility during the fall and winter, so we try to schedule most of our field adventures during that time.

Our offsite programs include, but are not limited to, exhibiting at festivals or school fun days, talking to school groups or after school camps and judging science fairs. During the spring and summer, our specialist travels around the state with the crew of the MEC with "Project Marine Discovery Series On-the Road Program" to teach students in inland areas about the importance of the estuarine and marine environment and instructs the students attending Sea Camp. Staff members of the reserve also provide mentors for science fair projects and national competitions such as the Envirothon. The reserve's education coordinator also serves on the planning task force for the regional science fair.

The DMR and the reserve partner with the MEC, a NOAA-designated Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) program, to provide Professional Teacher Development for Teachers within our region. Contact the MEC to see if any workshops are currently planned.

National Estuaries Day and EstuaryLive

National Estuaries Day is celebrated each year on the last Saturday in September. In order to promote the importance of estuaries, interactive online field trips, called EstuaryLive, are broadcast from several National Estuarine Research Reserves and National Estuary Program Sites each year to schools around the world. In 2005, Grand Bay NERR in partnership with the Mobile Bay NEP was slated to host the event in our reserve, however, because Hurricane Katrina destroyed the site of the broadcast, our partner, the Mobile Bay NEP graciously agreed to take over the coordination of the project. We retooled the script and broadcast live from their facility in the nearby town of Mobile, AL. Accordingly the topic of the broadcast was changed to address the impacts Hurricane Katrina had on our coastal habitats. Adding insult to injury, Hurricane Rita was passing overhead as we broadcast our presentation! In spite of all these obstacles, we were able to create a highly informative presentation on hurricanes.

These live presentations, as well as past, archived EstuaryLive presentations can be used in your classes if you have access to a computer. Review past presentations in your home or school or register for the next event at www.estuaries.gov. Teachers, these programs have associated curriculum with them, so do not forget to check out the link for teachers.

Many questions were asked by students from all around the country during our presentation. As a matter of fact, so many were asked that we are still trying to compile the answers to many of them! To see a selected list of questions and answers generated during our EstuaryLive presentation click here.

Locally, we co-sponsor the Celebrate the Gulf Marine Education Festival in honor of National Estuaries Day. This family festival consists of several hands-on activities such as canoeing, boat tours, cooking and animal and plant discovery. These experiential activities are sponsored by many of our local environmental organizations and regulatory agencies and promote the conservation (wise-use) of our coastal and estuarine resources. Because Hurricane Katrina destroyed the site of the festival, this event is in a temporary hiatus until we can we can regroup and redesign the festival. But don't fret, this event will return to the coast soon. We will keep you posted!