The Woods Hole Science Aquarium hosted five student interns in July. The students helped care for the aquarium animals and served as guides for aquarium visitors. The 2006 intern program included daily small seminars with Woods Hole scientists, collecting trips, tours of Woods Hole facilities and vessels, and field trips to Buttonwood Park Zoo and the New Bedford waterfront and fish auction.

The current version of the WHSA Summer High School Intern Program began in 2002 and has hosted 31 high school students, one-quarter of whom attended high schools outside Massachusetts. Since 2002, the aquarium’s summer intern program has also hosted seven other summer students, including five NEFSC Brad Brown student interns, one Hutton Scholar, and one Hollings Scholar.

Top left: the 2006 WHSA Summer Interns. Top row, left to right: Cynthia Annie Page (NEFSC Brad Brown student intern), University of Georgia; Whitney Greene, Tabor Academy/Connecticut College; Tim Rousseau, Grayson (Georgia) High School; Jeffrey Bolstridge, Algonquin Regional High School (Massachusetts); Bottom row: George Liles, WHSA intern director; Rachel Metz, WHSA senior aquarist; Megan Medeiros, Falmouth High School. In the spool: Laura Fagen (Hollings Scholar), Massachusetts Maritime Academy; Laura Jenkins, Acton Boxborough Regional High School (Massachusetts).

Upper right: Tim Rousseau collecting at low tide at Wood Neck Beach. In weekly collecting trips to local beaches and marshes, the interns gathered 300 animals representing 22 species. About half of the animals collected are now in quarantine and will be added to the permanent collection.

Lower right: NEFSC biologist Anne Richard (foreground) watches intern Laura Jenkins (center) remove a parasite from a goosefish liver, while Richards’ NEFSC Brad Brown student intern Belita Nguluwe (University of Maryland, Eastern Shore) finishes a goosefish dissection. Richards was one of ten NEFSC scientists who met with the aquarium interns and briefed them on the life and work of a marine biologist.

Posted September 14, 2006