Indian River Lagoon Aquatic Preserve staff collaborated with Rollins College on a Coastal and Estuarine Science and Spirituality Class. The class was held at Canaveral National Seashore and The Mosquito Lagoon Aquatic Preserve. The class tied in both the aquatic ecosystem connections as well as the human spiritual experience attained by aquatic explorations.
Conservation Pathways Executive Director Rebecca Means and six of her students visited the Apalachicola Reserve on Saturday, September 19, to explore potential careers in the environmental sciences.
Training and Engagement Specialist Svetlana Vikhlyantseva with assistance from Reserve interns Faith Causey, Madi Meadows, and Julie-Anna Duffey created packets of seeds for the fall native pollinators program to supply Franklin County residents with native plant seeds through the seed library program.
Last month, hundreds acres of mesic flatwoods were maintained during a prescribed burn at the Buffer Preserve in Port St. Joe. Teams from the Gulf Corps, Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve, The Nature Conservancy & Bald Point State Park were there to help ensure burn went as efficiently as possible.
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.