Bridge the Border is a virtual sea turtle research journey for K-12 students in San Diego funded by Sempra Energy Foundation. Kids follow SD State University interns online, watching step by step over several weeks as the interns work in Mexico to save sea turtles from extinction. The San Diego students will help interns ask and answer important scientific questions, learn science concepts and techniques, and get to know the local communities in Mexico using technology such as blogs and Skype chats. The main goal: inspire our kids to Bridge the Border! Think globally, plan for college, and help save the critters that share our planet!
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Bridge the Border was featured in the local news!!!
University-middle school connectionStudents work together to expand their knowledge of sea turtle conservation
Written by Tawny Maya McCray 12:01 a.m., Sept. 15, 2011
Bridge the Border is the brainchild of Ocean Connectors, an education program that actively involves elementary and middle school students in coastal conservation, and The Science Exchange, a nonprofit organization that creates affordable research internships for college undergraduate and graduate science students.
Throughout the project the middle school students followed San Diego State University students online, blogging and chatting with them by Skype, watching step by step as the college students worked in Costa Rica and Mexico to help save sea turtles from extinction.
The college students were granted scholarships for their travel from The Science Exchange and spent six weeks studying the sea turtles in their natural environments and helping to create hatcheries where the turtles could safely lay their eggs, away from predators. The middle school students mirrored the work of their college mentors by creating a mock nest, complete with sand and ping-pong balls in place of real eggs. Together the mentors and the kids learned what it took to create ideal conditions for their respective nests by taking the temperature of the nests everyday, sifting through the sand and measuring the moisture of the soil.
SDSU students Kimberly Valma, 26 and Gabriela Ponce, 20 were part of the group that went to Costa Rica and stayed in Punta Banco, a village with only about 200 people. They worked with olive ridley sea turtles, which typically lay about 100 eggs in three separate nests every two years.
Ponce is a biology major with an emphasis in zoology. She said the internship appealed to her because she wanted to “get her feet wet,” do some research and see if this was what she really wanted to do. She learned it was.
“I basically chose what I wanted to do with my life after the trip,” she said. “I decided I’m going to go into ecology (and work) in animal diversity.”
Valma is a biology major with an emphasis in marine biology.
“I really love, love, love the ocean, the marine, aquatic life, so when this opportunity came up I jumped at it,” she said.
The goal of their partnership with Montgomery Middle School was to inspire the young students to think about science as a career, learn about internships and about studying abroad.
Valma said she wanted the students to learn that hard work and studying leads to great opportunities.
“No matter what your goal is, whether it’s working with sea turtles or lions, if you try and pursue it, it will work.”
For more information about the program email info@thescienceexchange.org.
Bridge the Border is a joint project between Ocean Connectors and The Science Exchange, projects of The Ocean Foundation.
Thank you Sempra Energy Foundation for your generous support!