Student Symposium Helps Nurture Budding Marine Scientists
This article was written by Connecticut Sea Grant Communications Coordinator Judy Benson. You can view the original publication here.
Posters filled with graphs, charts and images interspersed with text told stories of locally significant marine science topics: impacts of non-point source pollution on local rivers, lobster shell disease, invasive species and microplastics in Long Island Sound and beach cleanups that employ trash apps to quantify and categorize litter.
That’s just a small sample of the kinds of topics addressed in the many posters displayed and presented by their creators at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk on March 14. For that day, much of the popular institution resembled a marine-themed academic conference, with one exception.
None of the poster presenters as yet had a doctorate, master’s or bachelor’s degree in the natural sciences or any other discipline.
Instead, they were elementary, middle and high school students from eight schools in Connecticut and New York who are part of the Long Island Sound Schools Network, started in 2023 by Connecticut Sea Grant and Mercy University with funding from the Long Island Sound Study. About 350 students gathered at the aquarium for the network’s first student symposium, where participants took turns sharing their own projects and listening about others’ work before taking part in hands-on marine science activities and guided aquarium tours.
“We learned about and visited all types of dams, and we’ve learned how water is treated,” said Adriana Rocca, an 8th grader from Thomaston High School, as she explained the poster she and fellow students created, “Thomaston’s Impact on Long Island Sound.” “Now we want to educate other people about Thomaston’s impact on the environment.”
Diana Payne, associate professor and education coordinator at CT Sea Grant, said the symposium was developed to give students a chance to showcase their projects to one another and practice skills they might one day use in their future academic careers.
“The symposium provides an opportunity for students to share their action projects and to learn from each other,” she said. “The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, with its focus on Long Island Sound, is a great venue for networking across the schools involved in the Long Island Sound Schools Network.”
Sofia Roberts, a senior from The Sound School in New Haven, beamed as she described the coastal cleanups and outreach to elementary schools she has been involved in through the Long Island Sound Schools Network, which provides $5,000 to participating schools plus stipends for lead teachers. Ten Connecticut and New York schools have been chosen for each of the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 cohorts.
“We work with middle and elementary school students to teach them to do water chemistry,” said Roberts, standing beside her group’s poster, titled: “Sound School Urban Waters: Clearing a Cleaner Path Forward.” “We demonstrated an EnviroScape (educational watershed model) for them. We’re trying to show future generations as well as current ones about their impact on Long Island Sound.”
Teacher Manjit Khosla of HALS Academy in New Britain, said her 7th grade students were getting good practice at the symposium for explaining their poster, titled “Human Impacts on Long Island Sound,” to an important audience.
“Our students will be presenting this at the Board of Education office,” she said.
Mercy University Professor Meghan Marrero said the symposium demonstrated both the breadth and depth of projects explored by the Long Island Sound Schools Network. Marrero is professor of secondary science education and co-director of the Center for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Education at the Dobbs Ferry, NY, institution.
“It is wonderful to see students learning from one another, and considering solutions to local environmental issues,” she said.
More Snapshots from the Symposium
Sofia Roberts, a senior at The Sound School in New Haven, was one of the presenters of her group’s poster. Photo by Judy Benson/CTSG.
