Arguably, the best way to learn is through experiencing something directly for yourself, which is why many teachers love opportunities to immerse students through field trips. The unfortunate facts, however, are that time and transportation costs often limit or prevent groups from being able to partake in field trips at all.

Despite this setback, Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) located in Juno Beach, Florida, still manages to have hundreds of school-aged students visit the research facility and hospital yearly; yet they are only able to accommodate a fraction of the 180 public schools in Palm Beach County.  LMC and many outreach agencies have goals to grow programming that is both targeted and meaningful to K-12 educators as well as to expand overall reach to students near and far.

Scientist in Every Florida School realized a possible solution to remedy the issue of time and cost for schools and maximizing outreach for LMC was to join forces.  University of Florida graduate and wildlife biologist, Alan Ivory, accepted the task of being embedded at Loggerhead in order to actively run field trip operations on-site as well as to push into classrooms throughout Palm Beach County.

The initial trial for the partnership over the course of February has proven to be a win-win for all parties involved.  In addition to scheduled school visits to Loggerhead, Alan has been able to push into another 12 schools in the area during the month of February, which equates to 100s of additional students in Palm Beach County being exposed to sea turtle biology, ecology, and the research and rehabilitation happening at the hospital.

Says Alan, “Seeing the veterinary process in person or virtually through the VR headsets in a traditional classroom setting can really spark interest in young children and adults, and make them care more about human impacts and issues facing sea turtles in our oceans today”.

To learn more about the charismatic sea turtle and the great work happening at LMC visit:  https://marinelife.org/.

For more information about the “Scientist in Every Florida School Project,” visit: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/earth-systems/scientist-in-every-florida-school/.