Today, we met at Neptune’s Nest and went on our first adventure as a team to Pine Island, located in the ACE basin.  The ACE basin is a protected estuary about 1.4 million acres in size located at the mouths of the Ashepoo, Cumbahee, and Edisto rivers.   The Discovery vessel from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources took us to Pine Island and back.  During the trip, they used a trawl net to collect creatures from the water.

In a short amount of time, we caught an iron bed frame along with an Atlantic sharp nose stingray, peppermint shrimp, hogchoker, tongue fish, and spade fish (my son’s favorite fithy!).

This evening, we heard Mary Edna Fraser (of the Frasers who founded Sea Pines Resort) talk about her art advocacy through batiks that depict barrier islands from around the world, as well space photos and deep ocean images.  She stressed the relevance of environmental activism for young  people, and the importance of using art as a visual tool to relate science to the masses.  I was totally inspired to bring this lesson to my students!  As Margaret Mead would say,