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Teens Guard Environment, Education

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: March 16, 2009

ST. PETERSBURG - Donning wetsuits and rubber shoes and carrying funky shovellike instruments, students from Lakewood High School recently took their lessons to the shores of Tampa Bay.

Instead of studying the environment solely from text books, members of the Academy for Marine Science & Environmental Technology used their muscles to add natural armor to the bay's shoreline.

The group planted some 5,000 plugs of smooth cord grass at the Terra Ceia Preserve State Park. Such marsh plants help protect the Bishop Harbor shoreline from occasional brutal beatings from Mother Nature.

Such trips, however, might not be possible in the future without a financial boost.

In these tough economic times, the Pinellas County School District faces millions of dollars in budget cuts.

"The things that usually get cut first are programs like this," said junior Gabriella Chisari, standing on the shoreline of Bishop Harbor in the southernmost reaches of Tampa Bay's eastern shoreline.

The students grew half of the plants that they used to stabilize the shoreline March 6. They grow the plants in a nursery on the south St. Petersburg campus, which has a man-made tidal creek running through part of it.

"We're underfunded as it is," academy sponsor Janice Creneti said. "We don't begin to have the money to function as a true career academy.

"Because we're an environmental academy, that means getting out in the environment and doing analysis," she said. "We don't have equipment or transportation. The county, on any given day, tells us we could lose $50 million or $80" million district-wide.

To help their cause, the students will hold a Womanless Beauty Pageant - male entrants only - at their school Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $3 at the door. The pageant will take place in the auditorium at 1400 54th Ave. S.

The field trips are something the students need to take regularly, not annually, Creneti said. The extra money can help make that possible.

"We raise the plants in the nursery at school and they get cared for at least once a month," Creneti said of the marsh grass. Students measure the salinity, remove invasive plants and harvest half of the marsh grasses yearly for projects like the one at Terra Ceia.

Mostly, she said, they commit to improving the natural environment.

To view more photos from the academy's field trip, go to http://snap.tbo.com/galleries/index.php?id=349238.

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