Boy Scouts attending the 2016 Advance-a-rama at UGA, taking water samples at Lake Herrick (Photo provided by ECOGIG)
The Spring Boy Scouts Advance-A-Rama (AAR) program has been conducted for over 25 years by volunteers from the Northeast Georgia Council’s Cherokee District. The AAR is hosted by the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. In recent years, over 200 scouts from troops in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee have registered for the Spring AAR. This year’s event was held on February 27th, 2016 and involved several departments on UGA’s campus.
Ecosystem Impacts of Oil & Gas Inputs to the Gulf (ECOGIG) Graduate students Andy Montgomery and Ryan Sibert, along with ECOGIG outreach personnel and marine science faculty, taught a class on oceanography to twelve boy scouts in order to fulfill some of the requirements the scouts needed to earn their oceanography badges. Some highlights of the event involved learning about the different branches of oceanography, why studying the oceans are important, and the cool technology and tools scientists use to do their research. There were several hands on activities involved during the day- the scouts built their own plankton nets and traveled to a nearby lake to sample for plankton using their nets. They also collected water samples and analyzed those in the lab to learn about the nutrients available for the plankton in the lake. They also got to observe and identify the plankton they collected under microscopes.
It was a great event that inspired a few future oceanographers in the group! To view photos from the event, check out our facebook album!