Advisors: Mrs. Jacki Clymer | JC[email protected]
Mr. Mike Madden | [email protected]g
Mr. Pete Jarrett
Wallops Island Field Trip
Each spring, eighth-grade students apply to participate in the Pre-Oceanography Program at the Chincoteague Bay Field Station in Wallops Island, Virginia. Selection is based on academic performance, scientific interest, and teacher recommendations. Leading up to the trip, participants are required to attend lessons after school to plan and prepare for the trip.
The Chincoteague Bay Field Station is located in Wallops Island, Virginia near Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Assateague Island National Seashore, and NASA’s Wallops Island Launch and Flight Facility. We utilize all of these areas during our visit. Students spend four days learning both in the lab and immersed in the field, gaining a great appreciation for the outdoors, the marine environment, and their role in it. The students actively participate in an array of classroom lectures, field trips, and hands-on activities. Before each field trip, students are prepared by the station’s instructors with a 30-minute lesson about the natural resources they will be seeing up close and then taken by bus which drops us off right into that environment. Field trips include visits to a salt marsh, protected barrier island beaches, and an intertidal zone, as well as a boat trip to sample chemical, physical, and biological aspects of the marine environment.
Students must apply and be selected to participate in this field trip. There are only 36 openings for this trip and the fee is $450. There will be fundraising opportunities available.
