Adults interested in Florida’s wildlife, coastal environments and conservation can now register for the next Florida Master Naturalist Program Coastal Systems Module offered by Rookery Bay Research Reserve and expert partners. This hybrid course combines online instruction with an optional hands-on field experience. The online component allows people to join the program from all over Florida.
Staff from the Northwest Florida Aquatic Preserves region coordinated with Florida Department of Transportation, the City of Pensacola, and Wildlife Graphics to install a new informational sign at Project GreenShores Site 2, highlighting the living shoreline project.
On May 1st, IRLAP conducted their seventh Indian River Lagoon (IRL) Drift Card Study Deployment. The study involves numerous partner organizations deploying wooden “drift cards” from different sites across the IRL on the same out-going tide.
The Apalachicola Reserve collaborated with Florida DEP Waste Reduction and Recycling Education to bring together various environmental partners in an Earth Day celebration located at Riverfront Park in Apalachicola.
On Sunday, April 12, 2026, the World Mission Society Church of God’s young adult group ASEZ WAO (Saving the Earth from A to Z) joined IRLAP for an Earth Day event to improve the native plant demonstration garden at the Titusville field office. The group weeded non-native and nuisance plant species and added 45 plants made up of seven native species to the garden.
The Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves (BBAP), with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), launched a pilot sponge propagation study in the Venetian Basin of Northern Biscayne Bay to explore the viability of using sponges to enhance water quality and ecosystem health.
The Tomoka Marsh Aquatic Preserve (TMAP) recently partnered with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the University of Central Florida’s Coastal & Estuarine Ecology Lab (CEELAB), DEP's Tomoka State Park, the Marine Discovery Center (MDC) and the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) Florida to install a living shoreline aimed at restoring and protecting critical coastal habitat within the preserve. The collab
A decade and a half after Franklin Fifth graders first started planting a living shoreline at ANERR. It is exciting to see that the plant formerly known as Spartina alterniflora (smooth chordgrass) is flourishing. The most recent classes to visit and plant Spartina alterniflora dug into the sand and dug into the data with equal enthusiasm.
Rookery Bay Stewardship Coordinator, Jared Franklin, hosted an international group of plant conservation experts for a field visit to Rookery Bay’s Cannon and Keewaydin Islands a few weeks ago. The visiting scientists were in Southwest Florida for a meeting hosted by Naples Botanical Garden as part of the Caribbean and Central American Botanic Gardens Network.
Rookery Bay’s Education Team recently attended the 2026 STEM Fair at JetBlue Park, home to the Boston Red Sox spring training. Almost 1,000 elementary students rotated through hands-on exhibits hosted by eight science, environmental and technology organizations. Rookery Bay was proud to be among them. The undeniable star of the day was Rookery Bay’s new Vusem Interactive Microscope!