Shedd Aquarium wraps three-year program training Bahamian students at sea

Shedd Aquarium has completed a three-year marine science partnership with the University of The Bahamas (UB) and The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI), a program that brought dozens of Bahamian students aboard the aquarium's research vessel, the Coral Reef II, for immersive field training in their home waters. The initiative, supported through a grant, was structured to give UB and BAMSI faculty room to co-develop and refine a for-credit curriculum across multiple course cycles rather than deliver a single one-off expedition. Over the course of the grant, 52 students participated in a combined series of four-day, three-night voyages around Grand Bahama and Andros, totaling multiple field courses aboard the vessel.

The Coral Reef II served as a floating classroom where faculty from UB and BAMSI worked alongside Shedd research scientists. Students rotated through boat duties and snorkeled seagrass beds, mangroves, patch reefs and offshore reefs during both day and night, and each course concluded with a final exam that anchored the academic credit. Participants and instructors documented more than 150 species of fish, invertebrates and algae during the program.

Program leaders emphasized the value of moving students from textbook learning into direct contact with the ecosystems they study. "Connecting a name in a textbook to a living, swimming animal is strengthened by opportunities to share the same environment with those animals," said Dr. Mattias Johansson, Assistant Professor at the University of The Bahamas. "Our hope is that training our students with a blend of local knowledge and outside expertise will result in enhanced learning outcomes that would benefit them as the Bahamian decision makers of tomorrow."

BAMSI's leadership framed the partnership as an investment in the country's own conservation capacity. Beyond the Bahamian voyages, four students who had completed the field course joined Shedd Aquarium research cruises in Florida, where they assisted with ongoing studies of queen conch and reef shark populations. Shedd researchers described the experience as exposing the students to long-term field conservation methods that are not always accessible within The Bahamas.

The Florida component connected the students' classroom and local field training to sustained research programs run by the aquarium's scientists. Students who took part in both the Bahamian field courses and the Florida research cruises described the program as transformative for their technical skills and career outlooks. Tatyana Lockhart said the experience sharpened her hands-on research abilities, from measuring queen conch correctly to using a hydrophone to track tagged conch and operating a small boat during field missions.

She also cited night dives as a personal highlight, describing the reef after dark as both exhilarating and calm, and a reminder of why she fell in love with the ocean. Britney Basden noted that conducting research in the Florida Keys strengthened her scuba diving, teamwork and field research skills, and that evening lectures she had not expected became an unexpected bonus, exposing her to new research techniques and career possibilities. All three students said they hope more Bahamian students will have access to similar training in the future, describing the program as a rare chance to see the full range of work available in marine science close to home.

Their reflections point to a central aim of the partnership: building a pipeline of Bahamian scientists equipped to study and manage the ecosystems of their own waters. Shedd Aquarium researchers involved in the program said the three-year design was intentional, allowing faculty partners to iterate on the curriculum each cycle rather than treat the collaboration as a single expedition. The aquarium says it hopes to continue working with UB, BAMSI and Bahamian conservation organizations to expand research and field training opportunities for Bahamian students, building on the species surveys, vessel-based coursework and research cruise placements completed during the three-year partnership.

Subject of Research: A three-year marine science field training partnership between Shedd Aquarium and Bahamian institutions aboard the research vessel Coral Reef II

Article Title: Shedd Aquarium concludes three-year marine science partnership with Bahamian institutions to train the next generation of ocean stewards

Article References: Shedd Aquarium concludes three-year marine science partnership with Bahamian institutions to train the next generation of ocean stewards. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

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Keywords: Shedd Aquarium, University of The Bahamas, BAMSI, marine science education, Coral Reef II, Bahamas, queen conch, reef sharks, field training, conservation, student research, Andros