Jun 13

Jun 13 RUHS’s Six-Day Field Trip To The Florida Keys

The 18 students were hardly awake when they met science teacher Deb Schaner at Randolph Union High School late last month, just before 2 a.m.

Soon they’d be on the road for a trip that would span more than 14 hours and include a flight and three bus rides — but it’d all be worth it: The students took a six-day field trip to MarineLab, a Marine science education center in the Florida Keys.

Schaner’s first time bringing students from RUHS to MarineLab, a trip she’d run with previous students at other schools. With fundraising help from her co-chaperone and RUHS teacher, Deb Lary, and a donation from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation, Schaner accumulated more than $40,000 to support the MarineLab expedition.

“[MarineLab] was kind of secluded around a bunch of houses, and the building was super colorful,” said Zoe Provost, a freshman.

Inside, the students were delighted to find a volleyball court planted in the middle of two classrooms, with dorms placed on the second floor.

Alex Scalera, another freshman at RUHS, noticed during the lessons the floor would move along with the ocean below it.

“The classrooms floated on top of the water,” Scalera said. “It was pretty stable, but you could still feel an up-and-down swell in your seat.”

Many students found it surreal to take notes on PowerPoints and then within the hour be on a boating expedition to see marine life out in the open ocean.

“It’s just so different when you see what you’re learning about,” said Lilly Patton, a senior. “It makes you so much more interested and willing to learn when you can see the ecosystem you study actually play out.”

The class got to experience this several different times during their six-day expedition, but a lab lesson on the colorful parrotfish was a clear favorite. Each student strapped on snorkeling gear and dived down into the Atlantic. Their task was to each find a parrotfish and follow it for three minutes, counting every time it opened its mouth to feed on algae.

“It was so fun to dive down and point and be like, ‘Hey, that one’s mine!’ and follow it around,” said Patton, laughing.

Using waterproof notebooks and clipboards, Schaner’s students would upload their findings to MarineLab databases, which professionals in the field use to further their own research.

Schaner found the trip not only helped her students become more interested in marine biology but also brought peers together who otherwise wouldn’t have gotten to know one another.

“Before the trip me and my friend Kaylee kind of talked but didn’t sit with each other in class or anything like that,” Patton said. “But we really bonded on the trip.”

“A lot of people became friends on the trip because they didn’t have certain people they usually

hung out with from class, so that brought everyone together,” Provost added.

It certainly helped to be spending 24/7 with each other in the dorms, on the volleyball court and by the sea. Schaner noted that some of her students who didn’t talk much in class broke out of their comfort zones much easier out in the field.

“Somebody who might not ever say a word in class might say, ‘I just saw a green moray eel,’ and suddenly, this person who doesn’t have much power in school now has a voice,” said Schaner.

That’s ultimately what treks to MarineLab have been about for Schaner. This is her seventh time taking kids to MarineLab to experience the real fieldwork and her first with RUHS. Schaner saidit’s one thing to lecture about the importance of coral reef health — but another to drop students, quite literally, into the deep blue sea to gather data on the impact of microplastics.

“You know, I’m not asking all of my students to become marine biologists, but this is the kind of trip where a student could find themselves and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’ve now found my life,” Schaner said.

With the trip wrapped up, Schaner has turned her eye towards next spring as she continues to raise funds for a trip back to the Keys.

Next time will come with one twist.

“We’re going to get them diver certified for next year — that way our students can go even deeper and plant coral to help restore parts of the coral reef in the Keys,” Schaner said.

Many of her students from this year’s trip are eager to sign up. The seniors just wish the program had come around one year earlier.

“It was one of the coolest experiences of my life,” Patton said. “I wish I could go again next year,” Patton said.

Regardless of who embarks to the Florida Keys next Spring, Schaner and her team are confident they’ll once again be giving RUHS students a trip to remember. And of course, some volleyball practice too.