THE BOY SCOUTS HELP RESTORE THE REEF
Sea Base is a Florida Keys institution that hosts Boy Scouts from across the country, teaches them about marine ecosystems, and helps them develop skills for life and work on the water. The scouts that are a part of this adventure are amazing stewards of our blue planet.
Coral Restoration Foundation™ has begun collaborating with Sea Base for weekly Dive Programs, with a twist. Our Sea Base Dive Program was born from a desire to create an avenue for community members to actively connect with our mission of restoring coral reefs on a massive scale, educating others on the importance of our oceans, and using science to further our techniques. It has been implemented in the past few months thanks to the dedication of our Education Team, in particular our Sea Base Intern Lindsey Smith.
Each week, our Coral Crew at Sea Base welcomes 24 Boy Scouts, aged 13 and up, for a 2-day Dive Program. The first day consists of an on-land education session and 2 dives in our Coral Nursery. Here we gather corals to be housed overnight on the Sea Base campus in anticipation of their return to the reef. The second day we head out onto the water and bring those corals back to the wild!
Working with such passionate students and teaching them all about coral restoration has created a bond between our team and the future leaders of coral conservation that we are eager foster and grow. Many of the Sea Base Boy Scout divers are brand new and all of them are 18 years old or younger! Imagine the feeling of accomplishment that comes from returning an endangered species to the wild before you have even graduated high school!
The success of this program will demonstrate the immense influence communities can have on the progress of coral restoration. Our team, alongside our Sea Base volunteers, has taken on the restoration of Alligator Reef and Cheeca Rocks, a total of 600 corals are set to be returned by this group in the next few months. CRF™ is looking forward to continuing this program with Sea Base to show how massive-scale coral restoration is made possible through collaboration!
CORALPALOOZA™ DIGITAL 2021
Coralpalooza™ 2021 was a resounding success! On June 6, the Coralpalooza™ Digital event brought together people from around the world to experience the incredible conservation work being done on a global level. Our virtual platform brought together a variety of great minds, creatives, and celebrities.
Our educational Kids Zone was an immense success for the second year in a row. Captain Coral debuted a three-part video series where he explored the deepest depths of the ocean and encountered some intriguing creatures! We also debuted our children’s book Isabella the Decorator Crab! All of the amazing and interactive educational materials are still available online when you sign into our Coralpalooza™ Digital platform, so don’t miss out. Check it out today!
This new age of digital connection and collaboration has opened new opportunities for our Education Team. We can now connect with experts and everyday learners with the click of a button! We hope events like Coralpalooza™ and future online outreach will continue to reach and inspire future coral champions. Thank you so much to everybody who attended Coralpalooza™ Digital; you are the ones who make everything we do possible!
OUR EXPLORATION CENTER HAS REOPENED
After a long year of being closed, the doors to our Exploration Center are finally open again! Come in and discover a visually stunning way to learn about our reefs without getting wet. We are eager to teach you all about our work and answer any questions you may have! Once you have had your fill of ocean exploration, you can peruse our selection of sustainable sun wear and other CRF™ accessories in our gift shop!
“I’m so happy to be meeting with our community again,” Dive Program Intern Sami Miller says. “It is one of my favorite ways to connect people to our mission!”
Swing by the CRF Exploration Centre for more information about how to get involved!
Many of our interns have gone on to do amazing work in the field of marine science. You can see what some of our CRF™ Alumni are up to here.
RESOURCES FOR YOU
Editor
Madalen Howard is CRF's Marketing Associate. Madalen comes to CRF™ via a winding road from the Tennessee hills, to the South Carolina low country, ending here in Florida’s Coral Reef. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Marine Biology and a Minor in Environmental Studies from the College of Charleston in 2016. Her experience ranges from field research to education, and communications.
Madalen spent the last 4 years as a Field Instructor and Social Media Strategist for MarineLab Environmental Education Center. Here she was able to study and teach marine ecology, while snorkeling through mangroves, seagrasses, and coral reefs every day. While at MarineLab she combined her education and research background, entered the world of communications, and developed MarineLab’s social media department from the ground up.
Throughout her life Madalen has had a skill connecting people with nature. With CRF™, she is excited to bring people into the world of coral restoration, creating inclusive pathways to scientific discovery.
"Heads Up" Editorial Intern
Growing up in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Gabrielle Rosenbacher has been passionate about wildlife conservation since she can remember. She became PADI certified at 10 years old in the Koh Pi Pi Islands in Thailand. Gabrielle received a BA in Environmental Studies - Ecology & Conservation from the University of Vermont. A semester of her studies was spent in the Turks & Caicos Islands at the School for Field Studies - Center for Marine Resource Studies, further growing her passion for marine conservation and diving. Following university, Gabrielle lived in the Canary Islands, where she received her Divemaster and PADI Instructor qualifications, as well as numerous specialty certifications. Since then, she led a non-profit marine conservation organization in Caye Caulker, Belize, as the project coordinator. Gabrielle would like to continue devoting her life to marine conservation and working with non-profit organizations.
"Coral Chronicles" Editorial Intern
Tessa Markham is a recent graduate of Skidmore College, with a BA in English and Environmental Studies. She grew up in Wilton, in southwestern Connecticut, but spent her summers growing up either hiking and camping in the woods or swimming and sailing on the water. She has always been passionate about climate change and conservation. Diving for the first time in 2014 while taking a marine conservation course in the Caribbean leeward islands, she quickly amassed dives and got her PADI Instructor certification just three years later. Just after completing her instructor training, she spent nearly a month on the Yucatan Peninsula conducting research on their reefs, looking at the ratio of soft versus stony coral death. She later channeled her distress at the degradation of the reefs to write a short story about coral bleaching, which was published in Volume 5 of the Oakland Arts Review in 2020. Her capstone thesis built on this theme and she wrote a collection of four creative short stories that detail and exemplify climate change-induced environmental damage through a narrative lens. She aims to combine her degrees and experiences to make a career in science communications, making research and conservation accessible to everybody.