Tag: Marine Environmental Education Center

This past December, the Marine Environmental Education Center (MEEC) unveiled its latest art installation, a mural by artist Rei Ramirez. A local artist, Mr. Ramirez works with a technique that combined his favorite art styles: portraiture, realism, graffiti, Art nouveau, comics, fantasy art, surrealism, Japanese print and Graphic Design.

The MEEC was fostered from a partnership between Broward County Parks and Recreation and Nova Southeastern University. The facility is located on the historic grounds of the Carpenter House at Hollywood North Beach Park in Hollywood, Florida. For more information about the historic property, visit broward.org. Located at 4414 North Surf Road, the MEEC is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 AM until 5:00 PM.

On January 16, 2019, the students from the Pace Center for Girls participated in their fourth session in the “E-STEAM Project for Girls”. This was a particularly exciting session as the girls visited the Marine Environmental Education Center (MEEC) and the NSU Oceanographic Campus. In the morning, they met with Meghan McGlone, MEEC Program Coordinator, who taught the girls about the sea turtle’s nesting behaviors, how to recognize their track patterns in the sand, and how the hatchlings find the ocean. The girls enjoyed a hands-on activity with a large shiny shell from a giant turtle. Winifred Verna, AAUW student chapter vice president, was also in attendance.

Dr. Maureen McDermott (AAUW/FCE) took the girls downstairs to the pool to see a presentation with MEEC’s permanent resident Captain, a green sea turtle who dives with the assistance of weight therapy.  Captain captivated everyone when eating a lettuce lunch, first above the water and then swimming down to eat lettuce leaves anchored in a device on the pool’s floor.

After visiting the MEEC, AAUW member and Halmos College Director of Academic Support and Administration, Melissa Dore, Ed.D., took them around the Oceanographic Campus, where they examined a manatee’s skeleton and toured a lab with non-living coral. After visiting the outdoor coral nursery, they worked inside with MS student Dayna Hunn on sorting her small, but fascinating, crabs. It was a day they will truly never forget!

For more information: https://aauw-fl.aauw.net/branches/nova/

Joining an ever-growing list of corporations, organizations and municipalities that are taking steps to reduce their dependency on single-use plastics, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) will be eliminating the use of plastic straws, first at it’s Fort Lauderdale/Davie campus, then the other NSU locations.

“This was something we heard about from students, faculty and staff,” said Dr. George Hanbury, President of NSU. “The time has come for NSU to take a first-step in addressing single-use plastics on our campuses. It may be a small step, but every bit helps address the bigger issue.”

Dr. Hanbury hopes that by NSU taking this step, it may inspire public and private sector organizations to explore the possibility of doing so as well.

While NSU will be replacing plastic straws with more environmentally-friendly paper versions, the university will still have plastic straws on hand for individuals with disabilities or special needs who need to use them, and they’ll be made available upon request. The fact is in most cases, straws are not needed – they aren’t the product people are purchasing, they are an accessory. You can still buy a soda or cup of iced coffee and simply drink from the cup – the straw is superfluous.

The campus is home to third-party vendors (i.e. Starbucks) who are also exploring the possibility of  following NSU’s lead and switching to paper straws.

For many years the outcry about plastics polluting our oceans has been heard near and far. Almost weekly there are news reports of marine creatures washing up on beaches that have their digestive systems clogged with plastic trash. Plastics have been found in all of the world’s oceans, in the polar ice caps and even at the deepest part of the ocean, the Marianas Trench.

“Many people have said that, in the grand scheme of things, reducing straw usage is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to addressing plastic trash,” said Dr. Derek Burkholder, a marine research scientist in NSU’s Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography. “While that may be true, the fact remains that plastic straws are part of the problem, so we can start there and then see what else we can do to reduce our plastic footprint.”

Burkholder, who is also the director of the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program and the Marine Environmental Education Center at the Carpenter House, said there are some reports that show that just in the United States and United Kingdom, nearly 550 million plastic straws are thrown away every day. In fact, approximately 50% of all plastic is single use, with an average “useful lifetime” of 12 minutes.

There are simple steps that people can take to help reduce their plastic footprint. From not using plastic straws to using reusable bags when grocery shopping, each action, no matter how small, helps remove plastic trash from landfills or the ocean.

Working with sea turtles, Burkholder and his colleagues have had to deal with the unfortunate reality of dead animals washing up on our beaches. And when they perform a necropsy he said that, inevitably, they find various bits of plastic in the turtle’s stomach.

Burkholder said it’s not just sea turtles – plastics are finding their ways into all sorts of marine creatures, great and small, from plankton to sperm whales. Even shore birds are being found with significant amounts of plastics in their digestive systems. Plastic isn’t biodegradable, it simply breaks down into smaller and smaller particles, including micro plastics, that are ingested.

“If you think about it, we’re polluting ourselves,” he said. “The fish eat the plastics, which metabolizes into their fat reserves and then we catch and eat the fish. We’re throwing plastics into the oceans and then, sooner or later, we wind up ingesting those same plastics.”