Linda Rowe of the South Carolina Aquarium sharing resources with educators on participatory science to address litter. Photo Credit: Hailey Murphy/S.C. Sea Grant Consortium.
Sweeping vistas of the Charleston Harbor greeted 71 attendees who joined the Consortium at the South Carolina Aquarium (SCA)’s Boeing Learning Lab for the second REconnect (Researcher/Educator) Symposium on November 3. The two-hour event was designed to bring together nonformal and formal educators with researchers from coastal South Carolina for a chance to share resources, build a network, and pave the way for future collaborations.
Funding received from the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium (Consortium) and a partnership with the South Carolina Aquarium provided support for the REconnect Symposium, which debuted with over 70 attendees in July 2022. For round two, REconnect focused on water quality research.
Jestine Deepe and Guinn C. Wallover of Mount Pleasant Waterworks engaged attendees with slides of active microbes and visual guides. Photo Credit: Hailey Murphy/S.C. Sea Grant Consortium.
“The REconnect Symposium’s main goal is to foster two-way conversations between scientists and educators,” said E.V. Bell, the Consortium’s education and outreach manager. “We aim for educators to leave with new water quality information and resources to pass along to their students, and for scientists to explore ways to amplify their research through educational channels. Watching discussions unfold and future connections established are true highlights of this event.”
With healthy ecosystems top of mind, the Consortium collaborated with Keep Charleston Beautiful, which operated a booth where attendees could learn about composting and recycling options as they enjoyed the plastic-free refreshments table. Keep Charleston Beautiful sorted and weighed the waste and qualified REconnect as a zero-waste event based on the amount of waste diverted from the landfill—95% or almost 19 lbs.
Image courtesy of Keep Charleston Beautiful.
As educators arrived, each was welcomed with a name tag, canvas tote bag, and a map before joining the main event: a room brimming with samples, equipment, flipbooks, and display boards featuring each participating researcher with a synopsis of their work, fun facts, and reasons to visit their booth. A total of 24 researchers representing Coastal Carolina University, College of Charleston, Clemson University, University of South Carolina, Nemours Wildlife Foundation, Charleston Waterkeeper, Mount Pleasant Waterworks, and Research Planning Inc. were stationed throughout the Boeing Learning Lab.
Scientists shared a variety of current water quality research, including “Microplastics in the Marine Environment,” “Applications of Community Science to Local Water Quality Monitoring,” “Sentinels of Synthetics: What Dolphins Reveal about Estuarine Pollution,” and “Hidden Helpers: Microbial Community Assessments to Inform Wastewater Treatment.”
Britney Prebis and Scott Glass of Charleston Waterkeeper discussed local water quality monitoring with an educator. Photo credit: Hailey Murphy/S.C. Sea Grant Consortium.
“Water quality is an everyone issue and one that we all collectively impact,” said Brooke Saari, coastal environmental quality and extension services specialist for the Consortium. “Through this event we were able to showcase efforts ranging from citizen science to habitat preservation to lab analysis. Water quality work takes many forms, and we were able to give that insight to participants.”
Researchers were able to design how they shared their work, so long as they didn’t rely on lecture or presentation formats. This led to a variety of approaches for demonstrations and activities ranging from visiting the world of helpful water-cleaning microbes under a microscope to sifting plastics out of sand to a rain gauge giveaway to handling samples of weathered jute and hemp for use in the salt marsh to simulating the flow of South Carolina watersheds using marbles on a three-dimensional map. Researchers shared classroom or educational resources, and QR codes at each booth connected educators with their research abstracts, all of which align with current College- and Career-Ready Science Standards.
Educators were able to place “calling cards” with researchers they hope to collaborate with in the future, sharing information on how they could mutually support each other. For example, a researcher might list that they could offer field trips or would like an educator’s assistance in developing new curricula. Likewise, an educator might state that their students need access to real-time scientific data or could assist with a participatory-science program through their class.
Researchers Maggie Pelton and Mariah Livernois of University of South Carolina Baruch field Laboratory provided samples of the textiles used in their research project, “From Blue-Gray to Blue-Green: Facilitating the Transition to Non-Plastic, Natural Material Use Within the Coastal Zone Economy.” Photo credit: Hailey Murphy/S.C. Sea Grant Consortium.
The event wrapped up with an optional networking hour of exploration around the South Carolina Aquarium, where educators and researchers alike could reflect on and appreciate their work supporting the environmental health of our state and the organisms that rely on it.
“The Reconnect Symposium was the perfect blend of learning, connection, and inspiration,” said Taylor Bensinger of Frierson Elementary School. “It made me excited to share more about our coastal environment with my students.”
The Consortium plans to reach out to participants over the next few months to capture any connections that blossomed from the event and identify opportunities for future REconnect Symposia.