Classroom on the Sand with Cushman School

On March 6, 2026, The International SeaKeepers Society hosted a Classroom on the Sand with 78 6th-8th grade students and 10 educators from The Cushman School at Oleta River State Park in North Miami. We started our day with an introductory discussion on the pollution crisis and local ecosystems led by SeaKeepers’ Educational Outreach Manager, Jack. Our students proved to be experts on pollution, naming and characterizing the unique harms of each type of pollution. Following this first activity, the students were split into six groups led by chaperones and older students before grabbing gear and setting out around the park from the picnic tables to the stretch of beach nearby. As each group started to fill their buckets, we prepared space for each one to be able to sort their findings based on material and the most common types of trash, such as cigarette butts and plastic bottles. Once they had all returned, we took some time to help each group organize their findings and concluded that glass bottles and plastic bottle caps were our most commonly observed form of waste for the day, and all groups together had removed more than 68 pounds of trash from the park. For our final activity of the day, we brought all of the students back together to practice modeling pollution through the use of our Enviroscapes Model Watershed Table. Again our students proved to be naturals, classifying the major source of each type of pollution and what harm they each cause in the environment. We had a great day with the students and team of The Cushman School, and we thank them for all of their hard work!