The blue room is filled with the soft gurgle of water filling tanks along the wall. A group of 10 individuals, ages ranging from mid-20s to gray-haired retirees, huddle around a narrow table. Plastic tubs hold sea urchins and starfish, their tube feet rippling through the water, almost as if they were waving at the humans above them. There’s an audible sigh: “Nature. I love it.”
These individuals are the first — hopefully of many — participants of a new adult education program being piloted at UF’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, located on the A1A scenic byway between Palm Coast and St. Augustine. This initiative is an extension of A Day at the Whitney Lab, a 30-year-old K-12 program designed for school children to experience life as a scientist. Now that opportunity is being extended to adults from the local communities.
A Day at the Whitney Lab experience was spearheaded in 1993 by Dr. Barbara Battelle, then a UF professor who specialized in the biochemistry of vision, in an effort to support science education in local schools.
Today, the program is led by Amy Biedenbach, the lab’s education program manager, and her team of more than 30 docents who volunteer more than 4,000 hours to deliver an unforgettable science experience to K-12 students. The activities have varied over the years, but the goal of A Day at the Whitney Lab has always been the same: encourage students to make observations, think critically and ask questions about the natural world.
Reports from teachers and parents have been overwhelmingly positive. The only complaint — if you can call it a complaint — has been the lack of an adult program.
“They often say, ‘When are we going to have an adult Day at Whitney?’” Biedenbach said. These requests have been coming in since she began working at the Whitney Lab six years ago.
To date, the lab’s adult-focused outreach has been limited to the lecture-style Evenings at Whitney, held once a month at the Center for Marine Studies. While these lectures attract hundreds of people from the local community each year, the format just isn’t designed for a personal, hands-on experience.
But Biedenbach’s team — a collaboration that includes one other education staff member, graduate students, post-doctorates and Whitney faculty — has been working to respond to the public’s requests for an adult Day at the Whitney Lab. According to Biedenbach, the overarching goal is to get Whitney’s brand and science out to the community in a bigger way.
“We want to give community members a little sneak peak,” she said, “an inside tour of what’s going on here by participating in these programs.”
In February of this year, Biedenbach ran her first pilot program with 10 adult learners. These participants spent the morning handling sea urchins and sea stars in the education touch tank room, playing a matching game teaching how DNA in the environment gives a snapshot of local ecosystems and inducing marine worms to metamorphose while learning how regenerative ability can change during an organism’s life cycle.
Mike Alyea, a UF Whitney Board member and participant in the pilot program, said the experience felt like a throwback to his early years.
“I’ve had a lifelong interest in marine sciences,” he said. “Now that I’m retired from aviation, I’m coming back to my first love.”
Alyea especially enjoyed the presentation on environmental DNA (eDNA). After his day at the lab, he followed up with Dr. Dave Duffy to discuss opportunities to support ongoing research, perhaps by collecting field samples for eDNA analysis.
Biedenbach, in true scientific fashion, viewed this first experience as a chance to gather data. One of the main things she learned after participant feedback?
“I need to provide coffee,” she said, laughing.
Alyea thinks more classes would be better. “There’s a lot of demand for it,” he said.
Of course, ramping up more programs depends on available staff and resources — a very real challenge given the lab’s already-busy schedule and limited funding. Whitney still does not receive federal support or community funding beyond private donations to serve thousands of learners each year. More support is needed to deliver these programs and continue inspiring local communities to get excited about and engage with science.
Despite these challenges, the Whitney Lab is committed to continue delivering high caliber learning experiences to the community.
“We’re going to be offering this multiple times per year,” said Biedenbach. A second pilot adult program happened this month, with another one scheduled for the fall.
If you have any questions about the Adult Day at Whitney — such as how to sign up for the next one — you can email Biedenbach at abiedenbach@whitney.ufl.edu.
“It’s just a great way to expose Whitney to the interested public,” said Alyea. “I would recommend it to everyone — absolutely, highly and unequivocally.”
