Samuel Gittens Jr Talks Coral with the Youth Ocean Explorers

Before the STEM Ambassador Program, my skills were mostly tailored to field work capabilities which would include scuba diving, mainly coral disease treatment since it is currently the work that I am doing; although I have not had much engagement in sharing my knowledge or information on the work that I do to the community. Through the STEM Ambassador Program, I was able to gain designing, immersion, and engaging skills in order to create my own engagement activity for the community. I decided to have my engagement activity with the Youth Ocean Explorers Summer Program at the University of the Virgin Islands. The Youth Ocean Explorers Summer Program is a marine science program that is hosted by science educators and youth mentors for 4 weeks in the islands of St. Croix and St. Thomas, and their goal is to educate and engage students in topics that varies to careers in marine sciences, environmental impacts that are affecting our natural resources, and identifications of animals and plants. I felt a relation to this focal group in which that I can provide my knowledge on corals and the impacts of coral diseases but most specifically, Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.

In order to prepare for my engagement activity, firstly I did an adequate amount of research on the focal group of their goals and activities to see how I can incorporate myself into their program. I brainstormed of what information I could share, and I came up with the conclusion of explaining to the Youth Ocean Explorers of general information about corals and it occurred to me that I can do a Powerpoint Presentation to showcase. Furthermore, I felt like that it needed more of a structure because I would like to leave the engagement activity knowing that Youth Ocean Explorers enjoyed the activity but also be informed on Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.

I decided that I would like to start off my engagement activity with a Coral Scramble of ten words that would be mentioned during the presentation. I would then continue with talking to them that corals are living organisms instead of being rocks in which some people might assume at first glance. Next, I would talk about several corals that I have seen during the field for my work and explain their descriptions and differences since some corals would look similar to one another. After, I will talk about negative factors that would affect corals negatively in which the last factor would be Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease. I would explain what Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease and explain what treatment is used to treat diseased lesions. My next activity would be having coral skeletons with pretend disease lesions that is marked with a marker and I would give them syringes with treatment in which it would be toothpaste and have volunteers show me what they think on how to treat these diseased lesions. After that activity, I would show pictures on how it is treated with the treatment, and I would also show fate tracked corals and that some corals once treated can show no disease progression afterwards and some that would still have disease progression afterwards. To end off the engagement activity, I would host a KAHOOT! Game to test if their retained any information and then asked for questions.

On the day of the engagement activity, the Youth Ocean Explorers were very lively and were ready to listen to what I had to say to them. They enjoyed the Coral Scramble activity in which they felt challenged on figuring out the words and also asking for hints in order to figure out the ten words. While I did start speaking on corals, they mentioned that they learned and saw some corals earlier in the day and they have already questions for me which was great because it felt that they were very interested in learning more. With the treatment activity, everyone wanted to participate so I gave them a chance and clean off the skeleton for each volunteer so that the next volunteer can try. They did very well and asked questions throughout the activity. The Explorers also loved the Kahoot Game at the end, and everyone was very excited that they were able to get the answers correct throughout the game. After the game, I gave the Explorers goodies like a water, sun block and other items for them to take home. At the end, the Explorers and focal group representatives had numerous questions, and I was able to answer most of them, there were some that were more leaning into coral restoration in which I did not had much knowledge on so I believe my knowledge on coral restoration can be improved and have sources available for them if I do not have the answer. I can say that overall that the engagement activity was organized and went well, and it flowed the way how I wanted to execute the day so I appreciate that my planning came into fruition. I would like to thank the Youth Ocean Explorers and their representatives for giving me the opportunity to host my engagement activity and being a lovely and curious audience.