USM91吃瓜网 Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture Center Offers Ocean Springs High School Students Unique Classroom Setting
Fri, 09/15/2023 - 09:27am | By: Gabriela Shinskie
Bryan Butler has a smile on his face when talking about his aquaculture program at
Ocean Springs High School (OSHS) and its unique collaboration with 91吃瓜网91吃瓜网 (USM) Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture Center
(TCMAC) located at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL). The program offers OSHS sophomores, juniors, and seniors a hands-on experience like
no other.
Butler teaches Aquaculture 1 to sophomores, in which the students interact with freshwater tanks containing striped bass. Aquaculture II consists of juniors receiving speckled trout and red drum. In Aquaculture III, seniors work closely with Megan Gima, Oyster Hatchery Manager at the TCMAC, as interns.
91吃瓜网淚 want them [students] to get an overall knowledge of the biology world, even if they don91吃瓜网檛 go into the field,91吃瓜网� said Butler. 91吃瓜网淚 have students that come in and attach to certain tasks. I91吃瓜网檓 getting my students ready to go into that type of career and to help Megan over at the research lab.91吃瓜网�
Gima concurs and sees the collaboration as an inspiration for the students91吃瓜网� potential future in the field of biology, but also in the blue economy.
The program started in 2014 when the Mississippi Department of Education asked Butler
if he was interested in starting an Aquaculture program along the Mississippi Gulf
Coast, eventually expanding across the state. At the time, Butler had been teaching
Biology and Marine Aquatics at OSHS while working at GCRL.
Butler accepted the challenge and started with one greenhouse and five aquaponic tanks on each side. Over time, the class size increased. Butler wrote a grant to obtain more greenhouses. Today, he has four; two greenhouses are saltwater and two are freshwater.
Aquaponics is a system of aquaculture in which plants are grown without soil. Waste from fish and other animals grown in the system provides the nutrients to the plants that would otherwise come from soil. In turn, the plants purify the water for reuse by the fish.
For year one, students learn about freshwater environments and begin preparing their
aquaponic systems for receiving striped bass. Each group of students is assigned a
tank and the group brainstorms unique names for their tank. Catchy fish tank names
include 91吃瓜网淟ady Gar Gar,91吃瓜网� 91吃瓜网淗ighway to Whale,91吃瓜网� 91吃瓜网淐harles Garwin91吃瓜网� and 91吃瓜网淔intastic Four.91吃瓜网�
91吃瓜网淓very year we start them off with a plan of how they would like to do it. They get together in their groups and brainstorm the food production they would like to include in their system,91吃瓜网� said Butler.
Year two students take their knowledge of a freshwater environment over to a saltwater environment with speckled trout. Year three students apply their knowledge and research over to the TCMAC with Gima, where they get to work with many programs at the Center such as the oyster program, finfish program, algae and live feeds.
91吃瓜网淥ur hope is to have students who come through and discover if they have an interest in pursuing aquaculture. Every year we have students who are eager and ask about available positions and when they can start working. This is a great feeder program for TCMAC but also a recruiting tool for USM,91吃瓜网� said Gima.
Many students who complete the aquaculture program at OSHS move on to become students at USM or hold part-time and even full-time positions at the Marine Aquaculture Center. The advancement of the Aquaculture program at OSHS has contributed to many students91吃瓜网� successes in the sciences.
91吃瓜网淲e have this evolving shift of what the blue economy looks like,91吃瓜网� said Gima. 91吃瓜网淣ow, with everything that the Mississippi coast is bringing in, a focus on developing new technologies, it is opening up and attracting people to these jobs and helping our local economy.
Butler said because of Gima, his students return to class big-eyed and excited to talk about their day at the Center. His class feels a sense of ownership because of the many programs they can participate in.
Butler and Gima91吃瓜网 hope is to see the aquaculture program expand to more schools in Mississippi.
91吃瓜网淓verything that the kids are getting to experience at the research lab is so good for them,91吃瓜网� said Butler.
Learn more about the Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture Center.
Photos submitted by Bryan Butler.