On November 18, SSV Tabor Boy, Tabor Academy’s 92-foot sail training schooner, will head down to the Caribbean for the winter months to act as home and research vessel during weeklong voyages for Tabor Academy student researchers. The students will be working on an ongoing collaborative research project to protect the coral reefs of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Formerly called Caribbean Studies, the program has been renamed to reflect its better nature – REEF: Research and Environmental Education Focus. And because the research is focused on coral reefs, it is an even more appropriate name.
Tabor has been sending students to the Caribbean since 2004. Every three years, students have prepared in the fall with coursework in order to work in the winter to monitor the deteriorating health of the Elkhorn coral population in hopes of finding out why they are dying off. The school is there in service to the National Parks Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, who are partners with Tabor faculty member, Dr. John Crosby, on shared research goals. Tabor students, through their youthful physical abilities and their careful skill and understanding of their role, have been critically important players in a series of successes in this story. Improving their research methods each year, and setting new standards for observation by square meter (rather than a general location survey), excellent data collection has created a historic database, marked by specific way points accessible to all on Google Earth, which has helped scientists to put the Elkhorn Coral on the threatened species list and later the endangered species list.
Happily, there has been recent improvement in the coral. Tabor’s large-scale and quantitative study of coral health around the island of St. John has provided strong evidence, for the first time in over three decades, that recovery of these reef systems is possible.
This year, the school will continue the monitoring project, but will also add a new component: current mapping. As Tabor Boy sails along, students collect water quality readings up and down the Sir Francis Drake Channel. This has revealed areas where wastewater dumping is occurring. Studying the currents will show where and how that activity is limiting reef recovery due to currents contributing to the concentration of coral pathogens within the bays and on the reefs.
During Tabor’s last visit to the park in 2014, research tracked currents within the bays using a natural florescent dye released in the water, and marked the currents using swimming students with GPS monitors. This year, the students will have some advanced technology to make things more efficient: flow meters. A tilt/drag device has been created by James Cook University in Queensland, Australia (a new partner in this work) to measure the direction and speed of the currents helping to determine if the movement of water within the bays actually excludes the entry of “fresh” water from the adjacent channel. With dredging plans to make room for new marinas, this data is critically important to be sure development will not make the situation worse. The local government, the National Park Service, and the developers are counting on the data collected to make an informed and objective decision about next steps, recognizing that healthy coral populations are critical barriers to erosion of their island home, and valuable attractions for tourists as well. Tabor student researchers will deploy these devices and be sure they are properly transmitting their data, and then track the readouts onboard.
The aim of this project for Tabor Academy is to provide students with strong examples of the power of collaboration, asking the right questions, being rigorous about methods, and seeking efficiencies through technology, and mostly, that their actions matter. On their return, Dr. Crosby hopes to involve his students to help write a research paper for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. Beyond being involved in a real life research project, being published coming out of high school isn’t such a bad outcome for a student at the school by the sea.