Vol. 3, No. 3 Contents
Headline Back Issues
Summer 99
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New NH education program steeps students in aquatic scienceHampton, New Hampshire --- "That's cool" --- the ultimate teen endorsement --- wafted up more than once from the bent heads of five Winnacunnet High School juniors peering through microscopes and stereoscopes at tiny aquatic plants and animals. At the end of the table, fathead minnows swam busily in clear containers.
Silver, a member of AERC's board of directors, designed many of its educational activities. She said she has always emphasized first-hand encounters with coastal and aquatic environments in her marine science classes, involving her students in spring and fall beach cleanups, organizing class field trips to a salt marsh, and stocking her classroom with live coastal creatures.
A good idea rebornAERC is a new version of a program that originated in the late 1980s under the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Cooperative Extension's 4H program. Named "Tidal Experience," taught by Silver, and housed in a small construction trailer on a Seabrook beach, the summer program immersed middle- and high-school-age youth in activities such as seeding clam flats and studying the aquatic animals of Seabrook's inner harbor. That program ended in 1996, when the trailer began to fall apart, according to Sue Foote, another AERC board member who is also Silver's sister. That year, the New Hampshire Coastal Program awarded UNH Cooperative Extension a one-year, $50,000 grant to design a new facility. AERC grew from that process. After three years of planning, AERC rolled out a roster of activities this summer, offered to local camp and scouting groups, and recreation programs. The center is not associated with the UNH Cooperative Extension, and its indoor activities take place in a new, albeit temporary location. A new facility, likely to cost millions of dollars, remains in the distant future. Fishy businessTucked in the back of a small office park next to a salt marsh in Hampton, Aquatic Research Organisms (ARO) is donating space and time for AERC's indoor activities until the organization builds a permanent facility. Owned by AERC Board Member Stan Sinitski, ARO grows and sells about a dozen species of fish and aquatic invertebrates for environmental and biomedical research and toxicity testing to clients in the US, Canada, and Europe. The company's aquaculture facility is an ideal setting for discussing aquatic food chains. "Everything that's grown here either eats something else, or can be eaten by something else that lives here," explained Mark Rosenqvist, ARO's Technical Manager and President of AERC's board of directors, as he led Silver's students through a maze of water-filled tanks and tubs housing various aquatic plants and animals. On one shelf sat large glass jars filled with algae-laced water. Tinted various shades of yellow and green, illuminated by artificial sunlight, and injected with air from thin hoses passed through their narrow necks, they resembled enormous, festive bubble lights for a giant's Christmas tree. Later, the students scrutinized several organisms under magnification, following an illustrated booklet that described the tidy operations of an aquatic food chain. Primary producers, such as freshwater and saltwater plants and algae, use sunlight and nutrients to grow and reproduce. Next in line are primary consumers --- algae eaters such as the chiefly freshwater Daphnia and mostly marine-dwelling Rotifers. Secondary consumers, such as fathead minnows, prey on the primary consumers. When the minnows die, they decompose into nutrients, and the cycle begins again. The "Food Chain" curriculum is one of three programs in AERC's inaugural lineup. Others include lessons for high school science teachers on how to spawn the zebra danio, a small tropical fish, for instructional use. A third program, Aquaculture Filter Construction, is an awards competition for students. AERC plans to expand its offerings to include additional curriculum topics and teacher workshops. Home economicsYoung people living in coastal New Hampshire communities need to understand the relationship between their backyard coastal environment and the larger Gulf of Maine marine system, and about the need to protect existing resources for environmental and economic reasons, according to AERC organizers. Salt marshes provide a buffer between land and sea, protecting the uplands from erosion, and filtering pollutants from runoff that drains from the land into coastal waters. The marshes also serve as nurseries for commercially valuable fish and shellfish. "If you don't take care of the perimeter wetlands and the salt marshes you're not going to have a healthy groundfish stock out there," Foote said. AERC presents these issues in the context of examining aquatic systems. Participants in the educational activities also learn some of the basic principles of saltwater, freshwater, and shellfish aquaculture, such as how to set up a filtration system, and simulate a natural spawning habitat. But AERC emphasizes that the critical thinking and problem-solving skills its youth programs foster will be useful in any future career, whether it be the aquaculture business or another field. For generations, according to Foote, youth from fishing families in Hampton and Seabrook followed their parents into the fishing industry. But as it declines locally, following a Gulfwide pattern, "Part of what AERC is trying to accomplish is to present other ways that communities can still find a living from the ocean." AERC treasurer Jim Fuller said he hopes the program can expand throughout seacoast New Hampshire "and possibly Massachusetts." Building a futureThough activity fees help offset the cost of providing materials for AERC's educational activities, the program essentially lives on volunteerism, in-kind donations, and occasional cash contributions by organizers. "Six months ago, we all chipped in five bucks out of our wallets so we could buy a P.O. Box," laughed Foote. Organizers have not yet begun full-scale fundraising for the new building, nor set a goal date for construction, saying they are concentrating this year on developing and promoting AERC's educational activities. "If we can get consistent tours and educational programs presented, it will prove to [potential funders] we aren't fly-by-night," Foote explained. By honing its program offerings AERC will also be better able to determine exactly what kind of facility it needs, noted Amy Day, a Fisheries Biologist who is also an AERC board member and instructor. Once settled into a permanent home, AERC intends to provide space for teachers and for high school students undertaking independent research, and to rent space to graduate students and other researchers, said Foote. "We're hoping that's part of the way we'll be able to get funding and remain a non-profit organization." |
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Members of marine science teacher Cathy Silver's class visited Aquatic Research Organisms in Hampton after school on June 16 to learn about aquatic food chains and to earn extra class credit. The tour was part of a new program launched this summer by the nonprofit Aquaculture Education and Research Center (AERC). 
"These kids see live sea animals every day. I do hands-on activities constantly," said Silver. AERC is offering even more opportunities for these sorts of close encounters, which she said are especially helpful to students who usually find themselves glazing over during science classes. In written comments following the tour, one of Silver's students remarked, "I would like to go back there and look at more. Or maybe even work or help out there."