As my internship wraps up, things have been very busy here at REEF. It is crazy how fast this summer flew by but I am happy to say my time with organization is not over, as I have accepted a position as the next Education and Outreach Fellow. By the time you are reading this blog, I will have made an over 3,000 mile drive across the country back to the Keys to start this new role and will be helping prep for the annual Florida Keys Lionfish Derby & Festival! 

Through my undergraduate honors thesis, I did extensive research on the marketing strategies for lionfish and the opportunities for different local communities to benefit from lionfish removal, which led to me learning about the lionfish jewelry business, started by women in Belize. At REEF I had the opportunity not only to make my own jewelry, but to lead a workshop for the community teaching them about how the lionfish invasions began, why these species are dangerous for reef ecosystems, and to make their own unique jewelry. Along with REEF programs and classes, each intern is given the time and freedom to work on our own personal project (or for most interns projects) and this workshop was one of mine! It was great to see how excited each of the attendees was when their piece was complete, knowing that they had created something that was sustainable, personal, and educational! In addition to this project, I have been working on a presentation to show college students how to access and use our database for their thesis work, have been working on my fish ID skills and advanced to a Level 3 surveyor in the Tropical Western Atlantic Region, and have been helping collect images of Atlantic Goliath Groupers (Epinephelus itajara) for the Grouper Spotter citizen science project. 

My friends and coworkers at REEF, Katie and Alexis, showing off their new jewelry from my workshop!

Of all of the students I got to work with this summer, my favorite was those from Camp Open S.E.A.S. This group is an annual summer camp for adaptive divers who traveled from all over the country to dive in Key Largo and volunteer with many of the marine conservation non-profits in the Upper Keys. As part of our Volunteer Fish Survey Project, I got to teach the students about the characteristics and behaviors of the most common and interesting fish we would see. After that we were each paired with one of the adaptive students that we got to lead on a fish survey dive. Seeing how happy my buddy Eli was when he finally got in the water and we started pointing out fish we had learned in the classroom was one of the highlights of my internship.

Our awesome team with the students and leaders from Camp Open S.E.A.S. Camp leader Rosemary taught everyone basic sign language so we could communicate with the deaf students before I taught them hand signals for the fish we would see during our dives.

Over my summer with REEF I have learned so much about the non-profit and marine conservation fields and have discovered my love for educating others about the ocean. I have had the chance to explore much of the Upper Keys and Miami areas both in and out of the water, and am excited to continue doing so over the next year. I am so grateful for all of my coworkers at REEF and for the support of everyone at OWUSS for making this possible.  

Hello everyone and welcome to my internship blog! My name is Carolyn and I am thrilled to have been selected as the 2023 Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society® Dr. Jamie L. King Reef Environmental Education Foundation Marine Conservation Intern.

At REEF we like to say that working for a non-profit means you wear “lots of different hats.” Each day looks a little different than the one before- one day I am hunting for lionfish, the next I am teaching a Fish ID at the local visitor’s center and the one after that I am developing a curriculum to make our database more accessible to students. Of all of the experiences I have had at REEF so far, my favorite has been any time I get to interact with the community and share the work we are doing. REEF’s main focus is citizen science, and through the classes I teach, my main goal is to convince the audience that they can be a “scientist” and help contribute to an important database regardless of their background. Seeing the way one of our new surveyor’s face lights up when they are able to take what they learned in the classroom and recognize the species they are seeing is one of the greatest feelings as an educator. A couple of weeks ago I was leading a virtual workshop for a zoo summer camp, similar to one I attended for many years back in elementary school. Being on the presenter’s side of it was truly a full circle moment for me, and I hope that those kids felt as inspired to save the ocean as I did when I was in their shoes.   

Below are photos of a few of the many species I have spotted during fish ID surveys! After a recent trip to Blue Heron Bridge, a dive site in West Palm Beach known for its diversity of marine life, my survey sighting lifelist has surpassed 100 species!

With REEF I have also had the opportunity to continue studying invasive lionfish. Over my last 2 years of school I completed both my honors thesis and major capstone research on lionfish in Utila, Honduras, so I often joke about how these fish have taken over my life. Even with the completion of those projects, I wasn’t ready to be done with lionfish quite yet and it has been interesting to compare the education, removal, and marketing strategies in the Keys versus in Honduras. Through the Invasive Species Program I have had the opportunity to lead presentations giving an overview on the lionfish invasion, dissected lionfish to explain their adaptations to students, and even gotten permits from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to hunt for lionfish in Sanctuary Preservation Areas (SPAs).  

My internship city of Key Largo could not be more different than where I started my journey just 2 months ago at the annual OWUSS weekend in New York City. About 48 hours after graduating from college and moving out of my apartment in San Diego, I was on a plane across the country to get started on one of my greatest adventures yet. In three short days in the Big Apple, I was welcomed into the OWUSS community, met some of the most inspirational people in the diving and marine conservation field, was blown away by the presentations from last year’s scholars and interns, and even got to make a side trip to Broadway to see my favorite actor perform! Even after a couple months I am still having a hard time believing I am a part of this organization. From the moment I walked into the Explorers Club I felt like a bit of an imposter- there I was newly graduated from college and surrounded by artifacts from many of history’s greatest explorers. Being in the presence of so much history and of so many members of OWUSS gave me a glimpse of what I would like to accomplish in the future and I cannot wait to return to New York next year to share my internship experience.