Underwater Learning in Action
Student’s reef cleanup provides both environmental and educational benefits
At Barry University, they practice what they teach.
The students who pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in Sport Management with a concentration in diving industry are taught to protect the underwater environment. That’s how a group of students and staff end up cleaning Barracuda Reef off John U.Lloyd State Park, Florida.
The cleanup was organized by senior Katie Leiter, 22, a marine biology major with a minor in dive education. She and 14 others made two dives on the reef and carefully collected an assortment of trash, including fishing line, bottles and a dive ladder.
Giving back
By putting together the cleanup, Leiter fulfilled part of a project she is undertaking in her minor, one that enabled her to give back to the environment.
According to assistant professor Sharon Kegeles, Barry University’s facilitator of the sport management-diving industry program, the cleanup illustrated the type of leadership the Miami Shores school tries to instill in its diving students.
“If a person is looking to oversee a group of people in the water, like a divemaster, that person must be able to deal with all aspects of the dive,” Kegeles said. “As a scientific diver, Katie’s going to be overseeing other divers.
“To do something as a volunteer effort at the same time, that was what Katie wanted to do.”
One of the other things Leiter wanted to do was hold down expenses for the participants. So she solicited cash donations for the cost of the dive charter from the school of Natural Health Sciences and the athletics department.
Working with care
Removing the trash from the reef gave students a chance to put their education to use. Instead of simply pick up stuff and hacking away at fishing line, they pain stakingly removed the trash, just like a marine biologist or geologist conducting research would do.
“All the participants had to be trained in advance how to properly remove the line without damaging the reef,” Kegeles said.
Barry University is the only school that offers a four-year degree program in diving industry. The object is to not just learn about diving and become a better diver, but to also learn how to handle dive accidents and undertake rescues.
Combined with study in programs such as marine and environmental sciences, photography and international business, those who get a degree in diving industry can go on to careers in dive travel, underwater photography, running a dive boat or working for a company that makes scuba gear.
Variety and travel
Students with majors in other disciplines get a minor in diving education. They include marine biologists who want to conduct underwater research, premed students who want to specialize in hyperbaric medicine and broadcasters who want to do underwater filming.
Diving is done locally as well as in the Gulf of Mexico, the springs in northern Florida and at Caribbean island resort destinations. By traveling, Kegeles said, students learn about different dive operations and diving issues as well as how cultural differences influence diving.
Leiter was required to do a full immersion sernester internship in marine biology this past summer. Through her contacts in the diving industry, Kegeles was able to get Leiter an internship working with whale sharks at a whale shark research center in Honduras.
- Reef (n) — 礁，暗礁
- Concentration (n) — a university student’s main area of study
- Instill (v) — to put a feeling, idea or principle gradually into someone’s mind, so that it has a strong influence on the way they think or behave
- Divemaster (n)— 潜水长 a professional who is qualified to supervise diving operations, and is responsible for a safe dive for all divers, both underwater and at the surface.
- put (something) to use (v. phr) —to use something to the best advantage
- hack away at (phr. v) —to cut into pieces in a rough and violent way, often without aiming exactly
- painstakingly (adv) —in a way that shows you have taken a lot of care or made a lot of effort
- specialzied in (phr. v) —to spend most of your time studying one particualr subject
- contacts (n .pl) —people, especially in high positions, that can give you useful information or introductions which will help you at work or socially
- scuba (n) —水肺a portable breathing device that allows divers to breathe under water; an acronym for “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus”
- hyperbaric (adj) —高压的relating to pressures higher than normal atmospheric pressure
- full immersion (n. phr) —完全投入；全浸式intensive, complete involvement in one course of instrucition, to the exclusion of all others for some period of time