Curiosity Unleashed: Falmouth seventh graders come to Woods Hole

Seventh Grade Day in the Village is an ambitious undertaking for WHOI Sea Grant educator Grace Simpkins and her counterpart at NOAA Fisheries. Every year they bring approximately 250 twelve- and thirteen-year-olds from Falmouth's Lawrence Middle school to Woods Hole to experience the “science behind a sustainable ocean.”  This year, the students’ excitement was electrifying – even a Nor’easter couldn’t stop them from coming! When a late-May storm blew through Woods Hole, the power flickered and went out but there was plenty of curiosity burning bright.

This year the students visited the NOAA Fisheries Aquarium to learn about the care and feeding of fish and seals and learned about how the Observer Program collects data at sea and uses it to maintain a sustanable ocean.

At WHOI, the students learned about harmful algal blooms (HABs), the technological advances being made to explore and understand the ocean, and how to take ocean samples from a research vessel.