Overview

On Friday, September 22, 2023, The International SeaKeepers Society hosted our orientation and kick-off webinar for the 2023-24 Junior SeaKeepers Program! We welcomed 20 high school students from schools all over Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, along with their family members, to Miami Yacht Club last Friday to join us for our opening webinar with Miami Waterkeeper and program orientation for our next cohort of participants. To start the evening, students checked in and met the SeaKeepers Education Team that will serve as leaders and mentors for the program and received program swag bags, including a Junior SeaKeepers tshirt and some other branded and/or useful sustainability items. Participants then joined Education Manager, Toni Lohroff, for an opening presentation detailing program requirements, expectations, and other details for promoting a successful extracurricular experience as a Junior SeaKeeper. After concluding the orientation portion of our evening, Miami Waterkeeper’s Education Team, led by Erin Cover, Education and Outreach Manager, presented our first “webinar” of this year’s program, which trained participants in the Waterkeeper “1000 eyes on the water” program for observing and reporting pollution events. We were so thrilled to have MWK deliver this first webinar, as it truly sets the stage for the program in teaching participants the importance of keeping our Bay and other waterways clean, as well as encouraging them to be a part of the solution to pollution in South Florida and beyond. Throughout the academic year, we will build off of this webinar knowledge through coastal cleanups, floating classrooms, workshops, and our final research projects, which will aim to engage students in understanding and proposing solutions to local and global marine conservation problems.