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• Open for Business
• 10 Questions for the Coastal Storms Program
• Coastal Groups Show Interest in Organized Land Conservation
• Committee Charged with Plan to Keep Waterfronts Accessible
• Miller to Specialize in Water Quality
• Sea Urchins Spawn Learning
• Asian Fishermen Net Loan, Gear Information at Business Workshop
• Volunteers Can Learn to be Oyster Gardeners
• Featured Publication
• From the Director

Sea Briefs is a report on the results of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Editor: Laura Bowie

This newsletter is available in PDF format from:
masgc.org/seabriefs

MASGC supports applied, interdisciplinary marine science research, education and outreach efforts to foster the sustainable development and management of the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and nearshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico

Mississippi-Alabama
Sea Grant Consortium
703 East Beach Drive
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
Phone: 228-818-8838
E-mail: seabriefs@masgc.org
MASGP 09-011-01

Sea urchins spawn learning

About 30 students at Vigor High School in Prichard, Ala., recently served as caretakers of aquatic animals during the inaugural semester of a hands-on aquascience course. Students raised sea urchins, white shrimp and tilapia in the class. They designed recirculation systems, checked and maintained water quality, including salinity and temperature, fed the animals and used science in ways they had only read about in books. Troy Latham teaches the class, which is part of the school’s Coastal Program that offers higher-level math and science courses not available at some schools.

“The use of sea urchins in the aquascience program is rather unique,” said P.J. Waters, extension specialist with MASGC and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Waters offers support to about 10 high school aquascience programs in Alabama.

Sea urchins are a great subject to study embryology. To determine the aquatic animal’s gender, students inject them with potassium chloride to see if they expel eggs or sperm, Latham said. Then, they fertilize eggs under a microscope and watch the cellular divisions that occur. Sea urchins became part of the Vigor High School program through University of Alabama at Birmingham Scientist Stephen Watts, who studies sea urchins and has developed food to sustain them in aquaculture. Watts, who received funding for some of his research from MASGC, supplies the sea urchins and the feed for the program.

The use of sea urchins and Watts’ feed in a high school classroom is an example of how MASGC-funded scientists apply their findings outside their laboratories.

“This is the type of outreach that MASGC wants to see from all scientists who receive funding through our program,” MASGC Director LaDon Swann said.

When student Michael Davis Jr. talks about his aquascience experience, he focuses on something other than science. “It was great practice for me for the future,” he said. “I did a little plumbing, put together tanks and tried to design a filter system for our project in the class.”

This is the first year that Vigor High School implemented the courses in the Coastal Program, and Latham said they still have some things to learn. “Our shrimp didn’t do well this year,” he said.

The school likely will offer additional classes that incorporate aquaculture in the future, such as honors zoology. He is optimistic about how students are reacting to the aquascience course.