Presenting the Environment

If you wanted to learn about aquaponics, epigenetics, pollution in the New York area, or the future of the commercial fishing industry, you should have been in the upper school Commons last Thursday, when the students of Duane Anzalone’s 12th grade Environmental Science class presented their projects. The four presentations were set up gallery style, presented simultaneously, and covered these topics:

• Aquaponics (a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics) featuring a live aquaponics system.
• Pollutants in the New York area and how those pollutants eventually make it into the water system and affect marine life.
• Epigenetics—the science of gene tagging and how those tags are changed by environmental conditions, thus affecting protein synthesis (in other words: environmental altering of the gene coding system).
• The future of the commercial fishing industry and migration patterns of certain species along the eastern coastal waters of the USA and how they are regulated.

Duane was extremely pleased and proud. “For a first-time event, these students did an outstanding job. They showed that, given the independence to mine their knowledge and research their topics, they could create something extraordinary.”

Many classes attended the presentation, and everyone was impressed. Math teacher John Keenan remarked, “Great to see students sharing about topics they’re passionate about.” And Educational Technology Integrator Isabelle Pisini commented, “They each did an amazing job fielding questions. They all know so much about their topics!”