University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience hosted its “Adult Day at the Whitney Lab” class May 14 at its coastline facility on St. Augustine’s A1A scenic byway.
The initiative is an extension of Whitney Lab’s “Day at the Whitney Lab,” a 30-year-old, K–12 program founded in 1993 by UF professor Barbara Battelle to support science education in local schools.
Today the program is led by Amy Biedenbach, the lab’s education program manager, along with 30 docents who volunteer their time in the name of science.
Biedenbach’s team includes Whitney Lab’s education staff, graduate students, post-doctorates and Whitney faculty. The adult program is an addition to the lab’s monthly “Evenings at Whitney” lectures.
“We want to give community members an inside tour of what’s going on by participating in these programs,” Biedenbach said in a news release.
The adult students worked with sea urchins and sea stars in the education touch tank room, matched DNA samples by using a snapshot of local ecosystems and induced marine worms to metamorphose while learning how regeneration changes during an organism’s life cycle.
UF Whitney Board member Mike Alyea described the class as a throwback in time.
“I’ve had a lifelong interest in marine sciences,” he said in the release. “Now that I’m retired from aviation, I’m coming back to my first love.”
Biedenbach plans to offer the program throughout the year.
“It’s just a great way to expose Whitney to the interested public,” Alyea said. “I would recommend it to everyone — absolutely, highly and unequivocally.”
For more information, go to https://www.whitney.ufl.edu.
This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: UF Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience offers adult learning class
Reporting by Lucia Viti, St. Augustine Record / St. Augustine Record
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
