Erin Hollander Dives into Ocean Ecology and Art with Local Youth on USVI

The United States Virgin Islands (USVI) are widely known for its expansive and beautiful beaches and colorful marine life. However, while the island’s draw is the marine environment and largely depends on this influx of tourism to stay afloat, many USVI locals cannot swim and are not water safe. No discrete statistic is available on the locals’ swimming ability, but Howard Forbes, the director of the Virgin Islands Marine Advisory Service, estimates an upwards of 70% of locals do not identify as being water safe. This is likely attributed to cultural, economic, and infrastructure barriers, something that the University of the Virgin Islands is hoping to change.

Junior Ocean Explorers (JOE) operating out of the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) is one example of a low-cost program on St. Thomas, USVI, that aims to increase the swimming ability and skills of local youth. This camp runs for two weeks every summer and offers elementary-aged kids the opportunity to work with certified water safety instructors to pass Red Cross swimming criteria. Campers also learn about their surrounding marine and terrestrial environments through creative hands-on activities, with the ultimate goal of encouraging interest in exploring and learning about their local ecosystems.

I was excited to work with JOE campers to design and facilitate an art project, dioramas, at the end of their two-week camp. I am a coral ecology research technician at UVI and I was eager to work with the campers to see what local marine ecosystems they had studied and observed that week.

Living on an island heightens your awareness of materialism, the physical cost of importing goods, and the societal cost of disposing of trash. To gather materials for these dioramas, I really wanted to focus on shipping in as few goods as possible, recycling and reusing materials as much as possible, and shopping locally. For example, to get boxes for the dioramas, I worked with a local shoe store to recycle their unwanted boxes, then sourced the rest of the boxes from friends’ discarded shipping or packaging materials. Campers also had the option of walking the shoreline to collect objects like shells, rocks, and sticks to decorate their dioramas.

Campers then spent three hours crafting and collaborating, helping each other make different sea critters and seascapes and enjoying recreating scenes they had seen and learned about that week. At the start of the activity, we discussed what they had seen and learned about in the marine environments that week; campers were excited to tell me all about mangroves, seagrass, corals, fish, turtles, and different types of rays. It was fun to witness each kid’s creativity and individuality shine throughout this activity. Some took a scientific approach, making sure that the stingray’s gills were depicted accurately or that their octopuses had exactly eight arms. Others took a more liberal and creative approach, creating larger-than-life moray eels, an ocean scene set within a galaxy, or glittery hot pink sea turtles.

     

JOE has had a tremendous impact on local youth: many campers return year after year, often graduating into Youth Ocean Explorers, and some even pursuing marine biology at higher levels, including at UVI. Even in my short afternoon with this group, I saw the immediate positive impact that this camp has on local youth. Many of these kids started the program with little water safety skills and most ended the week swimming out to the swim buoys, 50 meters off the shoreline. One student even included herself snorkeling in her diorama, an act that may seem dismissive but is actually quite meaningful in the broader context. Black individuals, specifically Black women, are grossly underrepresented in STEM fields, particularly marine science (Isma et al., 2023). Furthermore, media rarely shows Black people swimming, snorkeling, or in marine science. This young girl including herself in her diorama snorkeling and pursuing marine science is only one example of how JOE empowers and inspires local USVI youth.

The diorama activity overall was a hit, and one JOE camper exclaimed that was the “best activity and day ever.” This activity will be incorporated into the JOE and YOE curriculum for future years. In my reflection of this afternoon, I was again reminded by the power of outreach and how impactful programs like JOE can be. Every camper was engaged in the activity, and all were so excited to bring their murals home to share with their friends and family. This embodies the ripple effect, showing how JOE and similar programs have the power to enact large change in communities.

 

JOE: https://www.uvi.edu/community/virgin-islands-marine-advisory-service/st-thomas/vimas_junior_ocean_summer_program.html

 

References:

Isma, L. M., Bernard, M. L., Layton, J., Santana, R., Wilkins, K. W., & Nembhard, D. (2023). Black women in ocean science. Oceanography, 36(4), 56-59.