Florida Tomorrow is a day...
when whales and dolphins are no longer compelled to strand themselves and die on the beach.
For Future Scientists
At first, the elementary schoolchildren who visit UF’s Whitney Lab are hesitant to approach the wriggling horseshoe crab in the touch tank. But once a few children work up the nerve, the rest dive right in.
It’s that transformation from fear to curiosity that education coordinator Jessica Roberts-Misterly says is the best part of her job.
“It’s amazing to see these kids, who often haven’t seen these animals before, overcome their fear,” she says. “They learn how these animals survive, how they breathe, how they eat, what adaptations they have for their environment. Our hope is that knowing about these animals and having a positive experience will, in the future, help them be more aware of the environment and protect the places where these animals live.”
In addition to raising environmental consciousness, the Whitney Lab’s education programs let kids do hands-on experiments to show them that science is about more than textbooks.
“We want them to see that this is something fun and get them thinking about a career in science,” Roberts-Misterly says.
“We want them to see that this is something fun and get them thinking about a career in science,” Roberts-Misterly says.
The lab’s outreach efforts got a major boost in 2007, when the 17,000-square-foot Center for Marine Studies opened on the Whitney’s eight-acre campus with labs, classrooms, conference rooms and a 270-seat auditorium. In addition to the grade-school Day at the Whitney programs, the center houses middle- and high-school classes, public lectures and research programs for undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students. Ideally situated on a peninsula in the Intracoastal Waterway, the Whitney offers a limitless supply of pure seawater — critical to keeping research animals healthy — and a wealth of specimens available for collection right outside the lab’s door.
Modeling the Whitney after the famed Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, director Peter Anderson hopes to expand the lab’s educational offerings to the international level, attracting eminent scientists from around the world to work on their research and teach graduate courses and summer seminars.
From opening young minds to the possibilities of science to fostering
research on the cutting edge of marine science, the Center for Marine Studies is bringing the Whitney Lab one step closer to becoming the Woods Hole of the South.
