Bowdoin College Day of Service

Overview

On March 11th, 2025, The International SeaKeepers Society hosted 11 students and one educator visiting Miami from Bowdoin College at Historic Virginia Key Beach Park in Miami. For this visit, we partnered with the Historic Virginia Key Beach Park Education Team to lead a beach cleanup throughout the park as well as an invasive species removal. During our cleanup, the students got a chance to see some wildlife around the park, including seabirds like cormorants and pelicans, as well as a juvenile yellow ray in the shallow water. Our students worked quickly and efficiently, able to remove more than 67 pounds of trash from all over the park. Following our cleanup, we were lucky enough to be joined by Luiz and Maya of the Park’s Education Team, who not only led a discussion on the history of the park and its unique ecosystems, but allowed us and our students to help them in removing more than thirty invasive Brazilian Pepper trees which outcompete important native species. To end our day, we participated in a final discussion on the work and impact we had in the park, as well as a final Q&A with the students and the park’s education team. We give endless thanks to Luiz and Maya as well as Historic Virginia Key Beach Park for working with us and providing our students with such an incredible opportunity, and to our students for their hard work which served to make a lasting impact in one of Miami’s most beautiful and storied natural parks!