A lot of information has been thrown at students this week so they can learn the ropes of academics and living here.  On Wednesday they toured the Cape Eleuthera Institute and met the research project leaders who briefed them on the seven potential projects they can work with: aquaculture, flats ecology, patch reef ecology, aquaponics, archaeology, sharks, and energy.  Some of the students already got a taste of what research is like when they assisted the flats team in unloading samples of flats species from our boat and transferring them to the Wet Lab.  While touring the students around is intended to help narrow their focus in research, many of them just got overwhelmed.  As I sent one group back across the bridge I heard one student say, “That was really interesting but I’m leaving more confused now about what I want to study because it’s all so cool!”  And when you can inspire students to want to be involved in everything, that makes research exciting.   For the next couple of months students will be doing real work alongside researchers who are helping us live better with the resources around us.

I’ll be sending more info. on each project in the next week and feel free to check out www.ceibahamas.org

-Karla Cosgriff