Floating Classroom with UM Oceans Debate Intercollegiate Debate Students

Overview

On the afternoon of Friday, April 11th, 2025, The International SeaKeepers hosted a floating classroom experience with 8 students and 3 educators from the University of Chicago, Loyola, University of Vermont, and University of Miami Collegiate Debate Teams. These students were visiting Miami as a part of the University of Miami's Third Annual 2025 Oceans Debates, an intercollegiate civic debate tournament designed to give participants experience working with real-world environmental issues and discussing their arguments with expert stakeholders. To start our morning, we met our students at FIU’s Biscayne Bay campus in Miami, Florida, where after hopping on board DISCOVERY Vessel River Queen we set out for a fun day on the water. Our Community Engagement Associate, Lillian, started us off with a discussion on the key ecosystems that comprise Biscayne Bay, the history of South Florida’s watershed, as well as the nature of pollution and human impacts on the Bay. Following our discussion, we moved on to some water quality topics utilizing our Earth Echo Kits, where our Director of Education & Outreach, Toni, instructed our students on how to conduct four different water quality tests. The previous few weeks had seen heavy winds consistently throughout South Florida, so we were hopeful to find some unique results in its aftermath. As we finished our water quality tests, we arrived at Sandspur Island which, following Spring Break chaos had been left covered in high amounts of trash. Our students received a briefing on the island before spreading out and quickly beginning to remove the marine debris. By the time we had finished, our participants collected more than 18 pounds of trash in just 45 minutes! We finished our day with a short wrap-up discussion on reducing and reusing common types of trash in our daily lives, regardless of how close to a coastline we might live. We give a huge thank you to our participants for their hard work and to DISCOVERY Vessel River Queen for a fantastic day on the Bay.