Sumter Times

St. Lucie County issued the following announcement on July 16.

A grant recently awarded to the Smithsonian Marine Ecosystems Exhibit (SMEE) at the St. Lucie County Aquarium will fund an exciting new in-water educational program series focusing on the Indian River Lagoon. The program, through a partnership with the Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida, will explore topics like biodiversity, water quality, as well as eDNA (a process scientists use to identify DNA of organisms by analyzing water samples).

The program, called Lagoon Explorers, was created for Girl Scouts ages 9-18. Thanks to funding from the Indian River Lagoon Council, the program will have a reduced participant fee to allow underserved audiences on the Treasure Coast to be included. The funding will also cover the purchase of equipment and supplies to support the program, which will begin in the fall of 2021.

The program will feature several in-water components such as seining and plankton collection for an up-close look at the biodiversity of the lagoon as well special equipment to learn more about how water quality affects organisms in the water. Water samples will also be collected by participants to be analyzed for DNA; these results will be shared with the troops that collected them, giving them an even broader picture of the biodiversity of the lagoon.

Education specialist Erin Lomax says: “Everything we’re teaching will be contextualized during the program itself to give meaning to the data. We want to make sure the participants understand not only how scientists collect and use data, but why that data is important and what it can tell us about the current health of one of the most biodiverse estuaries in North America.”

In this series of programs, Girl Scouts will learn about the importance of healthy ecosystems in the Indian River Lagoon through many of the same methods that working scientists and researchers use. That’s part of the point according to Lomax, who adds: “Inspiring the next generation of female scientists, environmental activists, and informed citizens is crucially important to improving the health of the Indian River Lagoon and conserving it for the future.”

Original source can be found here.