Summer Everyday Ecology Programs for Disadvantaged Treasure Coast Students Begin Second Year at Harbor Branch FT. PIERCE, FL -The summer of 1999 will bring over 60 Treasure Coast elementary, middle and high school students onto the campus of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution (HBOI) again for a second year of the popular Everyday Ecology camp programs. Utilizing environmental education funding from the State of Florida (Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission's Advisory Council on Environmental Education), the camps will focus on introducing elementary, middle and secondary school students from St. Lucie and Indian River Counties to the Indian River Lagoon estuary and its ecology and seek to foster good environmental stewardship. Students who have not had previous opportunities to explore marine and coastal environments will be nominated by their teachers to attend the camps. "This summer’s program builds on three years of educational materials and program development at HBOI. In addition to the Everyday Ecology award, critical support has come from the South Florida Water Management District’s Water Resources Partners Program and the National Environmental Protection Agency environmental education grants program for the development of curricular materials on mangrove habitats and mosquito control efforts," says program director Jim Lappert. During the 1998-1999 school year approximately 450 disadvantaged students from St. Lucie and Indian River Counties visited the HBOI campus with their teachers to participate in Everyday Ecology field trips. Camp dates for this coming summer are July 12-16 (for elementary and middle school students) and July 26-30 (for middle and high school students). Each day will begin at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. There is no cost to the students who are selected to participate in the Everyday Ecology Camp. Planned activities include shoreline seining, water quality testing, spoil island explorations and cleanups and boat explorations and investigations on the Indian River Lagoon. Field trips to worm-reefs and sandy shorelines will focus on scientific surveys of the organisms in these habitats. Land-based activities will include a special program at HBOI’s aquaculture facility and laboratory work on plankton as well as the identification (and return) of bottom-dwelling organisms collected on field trips. Goals of the camp are to introduce participants to new experiences through which they may begin to form their own thoughts on environmental stewardship and ways in which they may contribute to helping save Florida's fragile coastal environment. Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Inc. is one of the world’s leading not-for-profit oceanographic research organizations, dedicated to the exploration of the earth’s oceans, estuaries and coastal regions, for the benefit of mankind.