Florida State Senators, Representatives Tour FAU’s Marine Science Lab

From August through November, numerous elected officials visited the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science Marine Science Lab to learn more about its research programs, the services it provides, as well as its powerful impact in the community and beyond. The lab, housed within the Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex in Boca Raton, serves as a multi-disciplinary research space for Schmidt College of Science faculty and students who study marine organisms and how they interact with their environment.

During their respective visits, state Senator Tina Scott Polsky (District 30), Representative Kelly Skidmore (District 92), Senator Erin Grall (District 29), as well as the staff from Representative Katherine Waldron (District 93), state Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book (District 35) and Representative Dan Daley’s offices (District 96) participated in lab tours led by renowned sea turtle scientist, Professor Jeanette Wyneken, Ph.D., department of Biological Sciences. Also involved in the visits were student researchers from the Marine Sciences Lab, postdoctoral researcher, Chelsea Bennice, Ph.D., staff from the Schmidt College of Science, and members from Florida Atlantic's Office of Government Relations.

Guests visited during sea turtle nesting season and were treated to a special tour that involved greeting over 100 hatchlings that the lab studies, including green, loggerhead, and leatherback sea turtles. Wyneken and her leatherback husbandry team are the only project of its kind in the world that successfully raises neonate leatherbacks for study and release each year. The legislators and their guests learned about the complexities of raising leatherbacks in captivity, from developing and feeding a specialized diet, to the carefully filtered and temperature-controlled water required for these pelagic turtles, and the close attention required for each turtle.

Several of the lab’s students, who are Glenn W. and Cornelia T. Bailey Marine SEA Scholars, met with members of the Florida State Legislature during their tours to showcase the public education displays and tools based on research conducted at the marine lab. Visitors to the lab’s observation deck that oversees the Marine Science Lab facility have the opportunity to view and participate in these interactive and fun marine research lessons.

The legislators were able to experience the spectrum of research taking place in the College’s unique marine lab which is currently home to six different scientists as well as many undergraduate and graduate student researchers. The fields of study of the principal investigators who perform research in the lab cover a wide range of marine species and topics, from sea turtle development to shark sensory biology, to marine plant ecology and functions.

“The cutting-edge sea turtle conservation at Marine Science Lab is of great public interest. I’m pleased that our elected officials joined Jeanette to learn about the science driving the pioneering methods for endangered sea turtle species,” said Schmidt College of Science Dean Valery Forbes, Ph.D. “The breakthroughs Jeanette and team have developed include a first-of-its-kind technique that is minimally invasive to measure neonate turtle sex ratios. They are building new methodology to measure these fundamental demographics at population levels across nesting sites worldwide.”

“Florida Atlantic University is so grateful to the Florida State Legislature for their steadfast support of our state universities and of FAU,” said Ryan Britton, executive director of FAU Government Relations. “It is always a wonderful opportunity to welcome our legislators on campus and to share the positive results and significant impacts that can be made in the local and statewide community as a result of their support and financial investments.”

Since its construction in 1990, the FAU Marine Science Laboratory has continued to create meaningful educational opportunities for students, contribute new knowledge through research, and educate the community about the importance of a healthy marine environment. Students skillfully communicate FAU’s Marine Science Lab’s science to the more than 240,000 guests who visit Gumbo Limbo Nature Complex each year.

Founded in 1984, Gumbo Limbo Nature Complex is a cooperative project of the City of Boca Raton, the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District, Florida Atlantic University, and the Gumbo Limbo Coastal Stewards.