Connecting Kids to Nature with Julie Ainsworth
Julie Prescott Ainsworth
Environmental Education Coordinator
Town of Madison
Madison, Connecticut
My interest in marine science started in my junior high school’s Oceanology Study Group. Our crazy and inspiring teachers led us on song-filled after-school field trips to the salt marshes and beaches in town. We worked in teams to study plankton diversity, fish populations, water chemistry, marsh topography, and more. We analyzed data, wrote reports, and discovered that hands-on, real-world science was fun!
From there, summer camps and summer jobs at Project Oceanology, field courses at Shoals Marine Lab and Hummingbird Cay in the Bahamas, and volunteering at New England Aquarium led to a career in marine education.
Field studies at the beach
My first job was as a Traveling Teacher at Mystic Aquarium. I put a cooler full of marine invertebrates in the back of a station wagon, and brought them to schools and public events across Connecticut and Rhode Island. It was amazing to see how touching a live animal inspired empathy and appreciation of marine life and the sea. As the Aquarium’s Lead Teacher, I coordinated the college internship program, presented teacher workshops, led teen expeditions to Belize and the San Juan Islands, staffed whale and seal watches, and taught marine science under sail.
Currently, I develop and teach outdoor field studies and classroom programs for local schools. Through field experiences aligned to the school curriculum and state science standards, children discover their own connections to the community and the environment. I hope these memorable multi-sensory experiences will inspire a lifetime appreciation of the natural world. I also teach marine biology summer camps, coordinate annual beach cleanups with Save the Sound, and tag horseshoe crabs with Project Limulus.
Project Limulus
Each spring horseshoe crabs leave the ocean depths and enter shallow waters to spawn. Their arrival is awaited by shorebirds, like the red knot, who feed on nutrient-rich horseshoe crab eggs to fuel their migration north, and by fishermen with permits to use horseshoe crabs as eel and conch bait. Since 1998, the crabs have also been greeted by volunteers for Project Limulus, a research project based at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. The goals of Project Limulus include determining population trends and gender ratios of horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) in Long Island Sound, and discovering whether they return to the same beach each year to lay their eggs.
Citizen scientists search the shoreline each May and June during the full and new moon high tides, when horseshoe crabs are most likely to come ashore to breed. After counting the crabs, they tag them, by making a small hole in the carapace with an awl, and inserting a round, white plastic tag. Each tag has a unique number, as well as a phone number (1-888-LIMULUS) or website (www.fws.gov/crabtag) to report if the tagged crab is found in the future. As more and more tagged crabs are recaptured each year, the researchers get a better idea of where the crabs travel from one summer to the next.
Tagging horseshoe crabs with Project Limulus ©Peter Otis
Tagging horseshoe crabs with Project Limulus
Tagging horseshoe crabs with Project Limulus
For the past ten years, Madison fourth-grade students have assisted with the research. Each class visits the beach during spring high tides to search for and tag the crabs, as well as study the coastal ecosystem. This year, we’re studying the challenges of regulating the horseshoe crab fishery, as our state considers further limiting their harvest. The field study complements the fourth-grade science unit on wetlands and creates a memorable hands-on experience for the students. The children measure each crab, determine if it is male or female, and estimate the percent cover of epibionts (barnacles and other living organisms attached to the carapace), which may indicate the animal's relative age. In addition, students use nets and shovels to sample horseshoe crab prey, and measure the estuary's temperature, salinity and pH. They also use binoculars to count and identify shorebirds that may prey upon the nutrient-rich horseshoe crab eggs. Just like Project Limulus researchers, the students come to understand the horseshoe crab's population ecology, or the ways it is linked to other organisms in its environment. And hopefully, they also discover that science is fun!
While there is no tagging happening this year, students will watch a virtual field study, then head to the beach with their families to search for tagged crabs. Sightings of tagged horseshoe crabs can still be reported at http://www.fws.gov/crabtag/ or on the Horseshoe SOS app. Over 1,000 crabs have been tagged by our students over the past ten years. We’ve had an 11% average recapture rate, generally finding crabs tagged at beaches west of Madison in both Connecticut and New York.
Over 300 million years old, horseshoe crabs truly are living fossils. Despite their name, they are more closely related to spiders and scorpions than to crabs. The animal's tail, or telson, is not a stinger, but is simply used to turn itself over. Not only are horseshoe crabs harmless to humans, but we actually benefit from cells found in their blood. Horseshoe crab blood is blue, due to the presence of copper-based hemocyanin. The blood is used by the pharmaceutical industry to test vaccines and medical equipment for the presence of bacteria. In fact, federal law requires that before any drug or device is inserted into the human body, it must be tested for bacterial contamination with Limulus Amoebocyte Lysate (LAL), derived from horseshoe crab blood! Madison students have been able to observe the blue blood before inserting the tag into the horseshoe crab's shell.
The IUCN Horseshoe Crab Specialist Group invites people around the world to celebrate International Horseshoe Crab Day on June 20, 2020. The goal is to raise public awareness of the challenges that the four species of horseshoe crab face worldwide for survival, and to promote the preservation of coastal habitats.
As Environmental Education Coordinator for the Town Of Madison, CT, Julie designs and teaches field studies for local schools, and classes for the public at the town’s beaches, marshes, forests and ponds. She hopes to inspire people to appreciate the region's diverse natural resources and understand their independence. She is also the treasurer for the Southeastern New England Marine Educators (SENEME) regional chapter.
