Category Archives: Outreach

Lionfish Outreach at Central Eleuthera High School

February 27, 2014 ceiblogger

Fire up the grill! As the 22nd annual Bahamian Young Chef Championship rolls nearer, high school students around the island are fine-tuning their culinary skills and perfecting recipes featuring local ingredients and flavor combinations.

Students learning the location of lionfish’s 18 venomous spines

This week the CEI lionfish team headed to Central Eleuthera High School’s Family and Consumer Science class to speak with Mrs. Williams-Sands’ and Mrs. McKinney’s students about preparation of lionfish. A student representative from CEHS will be headed to the Young Chef’s district-based competition next week and is considering featuring lionfish as a local ingredient. This shows marked and exciting progress toward cultivating demand for the invader from the fisheries industry.

Alicia Hendrix, CEI's sustainable fisheries research technition speaking about the introduction of lionfish in the Bahamas — Alicia Hendrix, CEI’s sustainable fisheries research technician, presenting on the impact of lionfish in the Bahamas

CEHS students learned about the invasion of lionfish in the Bahamas and some of the work done at CEI both to manage and to understand its implications for affected ecosystems. After being shown where lionfish spines were located and having their proper removal demonstrated, students Nigel and Sam faced off to fillet two lionfish, and they and their fellow students worked together to prepare them. Lionfish were fried, baked, and sampled by all students, many of whom had never tried the fish before!

Not only was it exciting to share this delicious white-meat fish with so many new samplers, but being enthusiastically approached by CEHS to introduce this dish was equally thrilling. With the help of more students, teachers, and community members there may yet be a booming lionfish market. Stay tuned for updates regarding the lionfish team’s plans for a local fisherman campaign; best of luck to CEHS in their competition next week!

Outreach, Research Programs, Sea turtles

CEI Participates in Deep Creek Middle School’s “School Without Walls”

February 24, 2014 ceiblogger

CEI Researchers Annabelle Brooks and Meagan Gary took a class of Grade 7 students from Deep Creek Middle School to get hands-on learning experience, capturing and tagging sea turtles in Half Sound, Eleuthera. The class was part of the middle school’s “School Without Walls” program which aims to tackle unique and pertinent issues confronting the surrounding community. Students waded out into the mangroves and captured 5 turtles and multiple bonefish. All were measured and tagged and released back into the wild. For many of the students, this was their first time exploring the mangroves ecosystems of Eleuthera. Two of the turtles were captured for the first time, which the kids named “Franklin” and “Slash”.

Students form a “scare line” that spans the creek, chasing turtles and fish into the net near the mouth

The seine net is carefully rolled up, removing any debris.

DCMS Grade 7 and CEI Turtle Research Team

Lionfish, Outreach, Visiting Scientists

RSMAS help with the lionfish invasion

February 17, 2014 ceiblogger

This week, the RSMAS group had a class on invasive species. As part of the class, team RSMAS got to go out with the lionfish researchers and help with spearing, dissecting, and filleting of fish.
RSMAS team
Megan Gleason said, “The spears were easy to use, and the lionfish were abundant. We got 14 of them!” Team RSMAS had the opportunity to dive and spear in an uncharted spot which was great.
It was alarming to see the amount of lionfish on a reef that had not been monitored, but it was also a cool experience having so many potential targets to spear!

2014-02-11 17.20.14
They got back to campus and began to dissect the fish in order to see what they had been eating. There were some baby crabs and shrimp in their stomachs; it was incredible that we were able to see them in their whole form. Then it was time to fillet the fish. Afterwards, the group reflected, “We are all looking forward to eating them and experimenting with ways they can be prepared. The cookbook we had the chance to look through gave us some good ideas.”

Educational Programs, Outreach, Plastics, Student Research

Plastics outreach with Preston H Albury school

January 28, 2014 ceiblogger

A PHA student searching for plastic debris

This past fall, CEI’s resident plastic researcher, Kristal Ambrose teamed up with local high school teacher Joanna Parker’s geography class to conduct two consecutive beach plastic surveys for their BGCSE course work, a national exam required for graduation. Their plastic lesson began when Kristal visited the high school to talk about plastic pollution and her research being done on the island. They were very receptive and interested in learning more about the issue.

The students surveyed two beaches in South Eleuthera and compared how debris levels varied between beaches. Thirty two students from grades 10, 11 and 12 at the Preston H Albury High School in Rock Sound ended their lesson on the beach to test the hypothesis for their project. The educational programs team assisted in this venture and helped to make it a success. Students were impacted by the amount of debris discovered on the beaches and are excited to conduct more surveys!

Educational Programs, Outreach, Research Programs, Sea turtles, Student Research

Earthwatch Expeditions starting soon!

January 23, 2014 ceiblogger

The Sea Turtle Research Program at CEI was recently awarded funding through the Earthwatch Institute! Starting in February, 8 expeditions are planned throughout 2014 where people of all ages and all nationalities can join the research team and assist with this important study.

Earthwatch expeditions allow individuals to spend a meaningful vacation working with scientists in the field, getting a unique experience, learning new skills and assisting in tackling environmental issues. Participants on the sea turtle expedition will live on the CEI campus and be immersed in all it has to offer, be trained in the skills necessary for field work, collect and enter data and participate in evening activities such as guest lectures and island exploration.

Over the course of the next few years, Earthwatch volunteers will assist in the collection of data that will lead to several peer-reviewed scientific publications. The topics focus on the

selection of and fine scale movements in foraging grounds, by green and hawksbill turtles, so that these areas can be conserved. To better understand this volunteers will be surveying for turtles on nearshore reefs and in tidal mangrove creeks, capturing and tagging turtles, surveying the habitats they are found in, and assessing predator abundance and diversity (sharks!) in these habitats.

Stay tuned for updates from the field and click here for more information:

http://earthwatch.org/expeditions/swimming-with-sea-turtles-in-the-bahamas

Educational Programs, Flats, Lionfish, Outreach, Plastics, Research Programs, Sea turtles, Sharks

CEI attends Abaco Science Alliance Conference 2014

January 22, 2014 ceiblogger

asac 1 — Stephen, Owen, Tiff, Meaghan, and Joce at the conference.

FRIENDS of the Environment hosted the 6th Biennial Abaco Science Alliance Conference (ASAC). The conference goals were to provide a forum for networking and information sharing for Abaco and Bahamas-based research projects, to encourage the use of research for local education and environmental management purposes and to stimulate further research in The Bahamas.

The research and educational programs team traveled from South Eleuthera to Marsh Harbour, Abaco to represent the Cape Eleuthera Institute. The team presented on various research topics currently conducted at the Institute. From mangrove restoration to deep water sharks, here is list of ASAC attendees representing CEI:

Stephen B Cone Jr, an outstanding 2013 summer flats intern, gave a talk titled “The mangrove action plan: an adaptive outreach and ecosystem rehabilitation initiative.”

Dr Owen OʼShea, research associate for CEI’s shark research and conservation program, gave a fantastic talk on deep water elasmobranch surveys. His deep sea videos caused much excitement!

Dr Jocelyn Curtis-Quick encouraged all to eat lionfish and talked about her study on the interactions between the Caribbean Spiny Lobster, Panulirus argus, and Invasive Lionﬁsh, Pterois volitans.

Kristal Ambrose gave a passionate talk on the spatial and temporal patterns in the abundance and diversity of plastic marine debris on beaches in South Eleuthera.

Megean Gary presented on her turtle research examining the spatial dynamics of immature Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas) within a foraging ground on the Atlantic coast of Eleuthera.

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Educational Programs, Outreach, Research Programs, Student Research

Outreach in Spanish Wells

January 17, 2014 ceiblogger

In November, Kristal Ambrose, working for the Center for Sustainable Development, and CEI’s outdoor educator Tiffany Gray, made the trip down island to visit Ms. Thompson’s grade 12 geography class at Spanish Wells All Age School. Students were completing a comparative reef study for their BGCSE course work, a national exam required for graduation. The students surveyed two reefs and made comparisons based on the diversity of indicator fish species, algae and coral competition, surrounding habitat, and coral disease.

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Outreach, Plastics

CEI’s Kristal Ambrose teaches the kids at the Early Learning Center about plastic pollution

January 8, 2014 ceiblogger

Last month,CEI Research Associate Kristal Ambrose had the opportunity to work with the “mini scientists” at the Early Learning Center (ELC) on campus, giving a presentation on plastic pollution. Kristal said, “To my surprise, these guys knew a lot about the issue, and even taught me a thing or two!”They acted out the North Pacific Gyre current, sang and danced to a song about how plastics break down, went to the beach to collect plastic, and then made art from it. It was such a great experience for everyone involved!

Flats, Outreach, Research Programs, Sustainable Systems, Visiting Scientists

Watch this incredible bonefish spawning aggregation video!

January 3, 2014 ceiblogger

Check out this awesome video of a bonefish spawning aggregation, and then read on to learn more about bonefish research being done by CEI’s collaborator, the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuTN0Wj8J_A&feature=youtu.be

A message from the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust:

One of BTT’s top priorities is to learn enough about the biology of bonefish, tarpon, and permit so that we can focus conservation efforts on the most important aspects of these important gamefish. Which habitats and life stages are most critical? As you know from our monthly updates, identifying juvenile habitats, migrations, and adult habitat use are constantly in our crosshairs. Only with this information in hand can we propose effective conservation strategies like habitat protections, which we have long been pursuing in the Bahamas with collaborators Cape Eleuthera Institute, Fisheries Conservation Foundation and Bahamas National Trust.

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Educational Programs, Outreach, Plastics

Wemyss Bight Primary visits CEI again

December 26, 2013 ceiblogger

Recently, twelve smiling faces from Mrs. Sweeting’s 6th grade class at Wemyss Bight Primary came to visit Cape Eleuthera Institute to supplement their pollution unit. The afternoon started off with a lively game to lighten the mood, followed by an engaging lesson on natural resources and pollution in the scenic “floating” gazebo. Students then explored some of the sustainable systems on campus including the mangrove wetland, CEI’s green buildings, the resource center, solar & wind power, the wetlab & aquaponic beds, as well as the farm. The adventure continued with fun activities on ocean pollution with CEI’s outdoor educator, Liz Slingsby, followed by a short clip from the movie “Bag it” on gyres and the North Pacific garbage patch.

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Education, Research, Outreach