St. Petersburg College STEM Director Erica Moulton was recently part of a team of presenters at the 18th annual Saba Island Sea & Learn series.
Sea & Learn takes place on Saba, a Caribbean island in the Lesser Antilles chain off the coast of St. Maartens. The event brings a variety of nature experts to the island to present to visitors and the local community to help them understand the value of preserving and sustaining Saba’s natural environment.
Moulton conducted five presentations over the course of the week, twice to adults in the community and three school programs for students ages 15-17. She procured a personal mini grant from the American Geophysical Union, which she used to cover the cost of equipment to build six Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) kits. After showing the students how assemble the ROVs, and teaching them about how marine technology like the ROVs, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and submersibles can be used in ocean conservation, she left the kits at the school so that future students can learn from them.
“These kits are really cool,” Moulton said. “They can be assembled and reassembled many times, and they’re actually capable of picking things up and taking photos underwater.”
Moulton also enjoyed being among the community of scientists invited to present at the annual gathering and having the opportunity to meet the others and see their presentations.
“I went on right after bioluminescence expert Dr. Edie Wider – the first person to photograph giant squid live from a submersible vehicle, Moulton said. “I worked with her to help her create educational activities for her outreach. We also had four women from the Academy of Sciences who presented on spiders on the island, and they took us on night hikes to see scorpions and spiders and geckos that are only active at night on the island.”
The Sea & Learn program was filmed by the Public Broadcasting System team for Viewpoint with Dennis Quaid, which will be posted online after it airs in the near future.
Moulton said she was truly excited and honored to be able to go and share science with the Sea & Learn attendees.
“It’s super important to share information like this, and we must share all over the planet,” Moulton said. “The answers to our issues might lie within a student sitting in a classroom right now. Sharing science is key.”
If you’re interested in exploring a career in science or marine biology, see SPC’s science programs here.