New in 2018!!!

We are very excited to announce the beginning of our new Mobile Marine Lab. Thanks to the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin County and the Marine Industries Association of Palm Beach County.

We have built a fun, interactive public messaging Mobile Lab that promotes advocacy across all demographics, especially at our schools in Palm Beach and Martin counties and at area events, fairs, boat shows and other community activities. With this new hands-on educational program, our students, at their school, will explore a working model of Florida’s watershed, the effects of pollution and beach erosion and how it relates to the marine-life food chain. They will have the opportunity to hold various marine life critters in our touch tank, and they will participate in an oil spill clean-up activity. These activities will explore the importance of water quality, conservation and a healthy marine environment. We will require students to brainstorm ideas for conservation activities and pollution control. They will be asked to educate their families and friends on the need to protect and sustain the quality of our aquatic and marine environments.

Guided by Florida Fishing Academy instructors, students dissect a fish, squid or other marine life.

The need to protect our natural resources has come to a tipping point. The time is ripe, overdue even, to bring a Marine Lab-like program to Palm Beach County. Marine Lab is unique to Florida: a decades-old education field trip that introduces youth to our spectacular underwater world – teeming with fish, sea rays, turtles and other marine creatures, and the reefs they feed on. The problem: It’s in the Keys. Sadly, many local students can’t afford the $200-$250 cost to attend Marine Lab, so a number of schools don’t offer it. Those who can afford it travel more than two hours each way by bus – and end up missing out on a key fact: All that underwater beauty is not exclusive to the Keys. Palm Beach County has some of the best snorkeling, diving and swimming spots in the world. We need a Marine Lab here, one that will teach our kids to appreciate what they have in their own backyard, how to enjoy it, and most of all, what they can do to protect it. Not only will the kids win out, but so will our marine industry, and an economy that relies on it.In our new marine lab, guided by Florida Fishing Academy instructors, students dissect a fish, squid or other marine life.In our new marine lab, guided by Florida Fishing Academy instructors, students dissect a fish, squid or other marine life.