Posters filled with graphs, charts and images interspersed with text told stories of locally significant marine science topics: impacts of non-point source pollution on local rivers, lobster shell disease, invasive species and microplastics in Long Island Sound and beach cleanups that employ trash apps to quantify and categorize litter.
That’s just a small sample of the kinds of topics addressed in the many posters displayed and presented by their creators at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk on March 14. For that day, much of the popular institution resembled a marine-themed academic conference, with one exception.
None of the poster presenters as yet had a doctorate, master’s or bachelor’s degree in the natural sciences or any other discipline.
Instead, they were elementary, middle and high school students from eight schools in Connecticut and New York who are part of the Long Island Sound Schools Network, started in 2023 by Connecticut Sea Grant and Mercy University with funding from the Long Island Sound Study. About 350 students gathered at the aquarium for the network’s first student symposium, where participants took turns sharing their own projects and listening about others’ work before taking part in hands-on marine science activities and guided aquarium tours. Read the full story here.