Hi, you're listening to Cultivate
Curiosity, a.
Podcast that inspires the next generation
to stay curious.
Cultivate curiosity is brought to you by
the Emerald Coast Science Center, a
nonprofit.
Interactive science museum and steam
educational facility in Fort Walton Beach,
Florida.
This podcast is perfect for anyone curious
about the world we live in because
you never know what we'll talk about
next. Hi everyone. My name's Harley and
I'm an educator and the Community affairs
coordinator at the Emerald Coast Science
Center.
And my name's Jacie and I'm the
social media coordinator at the Science
Center. And on today's episode, we have
a special guest, Amanda, who works at
the Choctahatchee Basin Alliance. Amanda,
can you tell us who you are
and what you do?
Of course. Hi, my name is Amanda
Bryant. I am the education program manager
of the Choctahatche Basin Alliance. I
manage all of the CBA's K through
twelve education programs.
Can you tell us maybe a little
history of the CBA?
Absolutely. Back in 1996, representatives
from the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection and the Northwest
Florida Water Management District were
working together to stand up grassroots
watershed organizations to help promote
water quality at the local level. There
had been a lot of red tide
events and fish kills in the years
immediately preceding that time, and
empowering local folks to take care of
their waterways was part of the response
to these catastrophes. As a result, state,
federal, and local government agencies,
environmental organizations, and local
businesses met with concerned citizens and
elected officials at Northwest Florida
State College to discuss environment
quality. The sharing of concerns from
participants and the discussion on
philosophies of ecosystem management from
the FDUP and Eglint Air Force Base
sparked a partnership for Sustainable
Waterways that is now called the
Choctahatchee Basin alliance of Northwest
Florida State College, also known as CBA.
You'll hear me say CBA a lot.
In those early years, the main focus
was water quality monitoring, and CBA just
grew from there.
Can you also tell us what the
mission and vision of CBA is?
Our mission is to promote fishable,
swimmable waters in our community through
education, restoration, monitoring, and
research. That's because healthy local
waterways are the foundation of our
economic security and identity. CBA is
driven to provide a sustainable
Choctahatchee basin for future generations
by inspiring water stewardship and
continually growing a network of
supporters to protect our precious natural
resources. Cool.
So what are some of the things
in regards to that that CBA does.
So CBA is a small organization with
only six full time employees and four
part time staff members. Despite that, we
do a lot so I'm just going
to give some of the highlights. We
divide our efforts into four program
areas, education, restoration, monitoring
and research, but we tend to combine
monitoring and research together since
it's hard to have one without the
other. Our big effort in the monitoring
and research area is our long term
citizen Scientist driven Water Quality
monitoring program. Our water quality crew
consists of CBA staff and volunteers who
go out to a combined total of
136 stations every month to monitor the
health of the Choctahy Bay, the coastal
Dune Lakes, the Choctahatchee river and
many of its tributaries. Volunteers are
trained to use equipment and collect water
samples, just like staff and we send
the water samples to our partners at
the University of Florida Lake Watch Lab
for analysis. All of our data is
uploaded into the National Water Quality
Portal and this statewide wind system
where it can be used for anyone
to guide research and support decision
making. You can see more of this
living data set at our interactive water
quality map that can be found on
our website@basinalliance.org. As far as
our restoration program goes, we are most
proud of our living shoreline initiative
and all of the on the ground
habitat restoration that we have done in
the Choctahatchee Bay. For those of you
who might not know what a living
shoreline is, it is a management option
that uses living plants, recycled oyster
shells, fossilized oyster shells, sandfill
or natural structures with rip wrap or
offshore breakwaters to protect property
from erosion. Living shorelines present an
ecological and economical alternative
viable for low erosional settings in the
Choctahatchie Bay. To date, CBA has
constructed over 45 living shorelines in
the Choctahatchie Bay and they range from
anywhere from as short as 100ft to
all the way up to 1 mile
of shoreline. Not only do these
naturebased infrastructures protect the
shoreline from erosion, but they also
restore habitat for intertidal critters
like oysters, juvenile fish, crabs, snells
and plants. And since living shorelines
are built near the shoreline, they are
often visited by waiting birds and
raccoons looking for a snack. We love
seeing all the life after we have
installed a living shoreline and watch it
mature. Our education program, which I'm
in charge of, is designed to create
new water stewards and the best way
to do that is to capture the
hearts and minds of kids. Our grasses
and classes program students grow salt
marsh plants at their schools while
learning about Choctahatchee Bay and hands
on science lessons. At the end of
the year, the students take a direct
role in the restoration of the
Choctahatchee Bay by planting their salt
marsh plants during a field trip to
one of our living shoreline sites. This
program takes so much time and resources,
but we definitely think it's totally worth
it.
The Emerald Coast Science Center, we
really enjoyed going and partnering with
you guys. We partnered and did the
grasses and classes with them. It was
super fun and it's interesting to hear
you talk about the four areas you
tried to cover because I never really
thought about the education and then the
restoration kind of going hand in hand
within that class. So it's nice that
that category was.
Able to be hit as well.
I wish we could go plant the
grasses with them, like in the water.
I'm sure we could make something. Yeah,
but, yeah, all of our program areas
really interconnect in a lot of ways.
So we work really closely together and
we love that they connect and we
try to get those connections with all
the people that work with us. And
like I was saying, CBA does so
much and these are just highlights. So
we could not do any of it
without the help and support of our
community. We use volunteers and
partnerships to support all of our program
areas. Like you said, most recently, y'all
were partnering with us to do our
introduction lesson. And it's a lot of
hard work. There's a lot of prep
work involved in making soil, splitting
plants, building nurseries, and putting
supplies together for teachers. So we had
many volunteer days that we opened up
to the public. But what helped the
most with all that prep work was
partnering with Miss Annette Rayleigh, who
is a science teacher with the Seacost
Collegiate High School at the Northwest
Florida State College, South Walton
Center. Her and her students would come
after school multiple days a week and
sometimes during the school day to help
with all of our prep work for
implementing the lesson. It requires a
team of five to six people every
time we go to a school. We
only have three people at CBA that
are dedicated to education. So we really
needed some help. Last year, we started
partnering with you all and it worked
so well. We definitely wanted to partner
again. And once again, it worked out
so great. We love every minute of
it. And this year you all helped
us work with 16 schools, teach 1750
children and pot almost 3500
plants.
Oh, boy, that's a lot.
So we definitely could not have done
any of that without you all, without
all of our other partners that helped
make it happen. I definitely want to
give a shout out to Sabina Pennington
with the Choctahatchee Bay Estuary Program
and Kaylee Heimer with Okaloosa county for
also helping us teach the, you know,
up until this point, I've just been
emphasizing the education partners and the
program because that's what I do. But
all of CBA cannot be successful without
all the volunteers and partnerships that
we have in all of our areas.
One of the reasons why I think
CBA is so successful is we empower
our community to be stewards along with
us. If we didn't have the community
believing in the need for clean waterways
and working along with us, it would
definitely be a struggle.
I think you guys do a really
good job, too, of thanking everybody that
you work with. I think as a
small organization, both you guys and us
as well, it's really important to remember
to thank people, even if it's super
busy and there's lots of stuff going
on. These people care about our mission
as well, so it's important to just
give them a little pat on the
back and thank them a lot. So
I think you guys do great. And
also, all of your work that you
do for prep does not go unnoticed.
All of those buckets of soil we
have to unload, I'm like, they put
this much soil in all of here,
like, literally the day before. Oh, gosh.
It doesn't go unnoticed.
Well, thank you. That's really great to
hear. I'm glad we're thanking people
enough. We definitely strive to do that.
Yeah, I see you guys always post
Luther's, the pontoon place.
Oh, yeah, he's great.
And Kaylee from Okaloosa that came out
to partner with us.
Kaylee, she was great.
She was super nice. Sabina's wonderful.
The last CBA we did was on
Halloween, and Sabina comes out as Pippi,
long stockings.
I was like, I didn't know we.
Were supposed to dress up, but I
loved it. It's fun.
Absolutely. That's what our goal is, to
make our job look fun, no matter
how hard it is. And we want
people to love working with us because
we need you all to keep working.
I would say we probably try to
do the same thing, even though there's,
like, an immediate, like, right after
doing something, it's like, oh, yeah,
okay, this is fun. It was actually
fun. I liked it, but tired. So.
So now that we know all that
you guys do, can you tell us
what areas you work in?
Yeah. So our main focus areas are
in Okaloosa and Walton County. Since we
were founded to do water quality in
the Choctahatchee Bay, it made sense to
keep this our focus area, but we
do some things away from the Bay
and these two counties. Our education team
does programs all over both counties, but
we are developing freshwater lessons that
we hope to use to reach up
into homes in Washington counties. Of
course, we do a lot of restoration
in the Choctahy Bay, but we also
work in the Santa Rosa Sound, the
coastal Dune Lakes, and the dunes within
both counties. Our water quality
monitoring happens all over the bay and
the Dune Lakes, but we also go
up into some of our creeks and
even go up the river all the
way into Geneva, Alabama. So we have
to remember our watershed just isn't the
bay. It's all the land, all the
water that drains to the bay. And
actually over 50% of it is in
Alabama.
Does it go past Alabama or does
it?
No, it's just South Alabama.
Okay, so we talked about how you
have a lot of volunteers. How would
someone get involved as a volunteer at
CBA?
So the best way to do that
is go to our website, bassoonalliance.org.
There you can get connected to us
in Facebook and Instagram. You can also
join our newsletter, all those things. We
keep you updated about what we're doing
and if we have volunteer events. But
I would say the best way is
to definitely email us at cBA at
nwfsc.edu.
That's Northwestflooridastatecollege.edu
and you can ask us for more
information for potential volunteer
opportunities. We always love having
people join our team in that way
so we can get you connected to
the right people with whatever you're
interested in. And also, don't forget that
even if you can't volunteer with us
due to physical limitations or just your
time doesn't work around your work
schedule, you can still help. We are
completely grant, donor and contract
funded. We are always in need of
financial assistance. So donations are
always very much appreciated as well.
Always, yes, you all understand.
Okay, so now on to favorites and
fun memories. Do you have a favorite
thing about your job, a favorite lesson
you like to teach?
So it's kind of a hard question
because there is so much, but
I guess kind of the short, long
answer. My favorite part about my job
is getting to share my love and
passion for the local environment with our
younger generation. There are so many kids
in this area who have never been
to the Bay or the sound, even
though they only live 5 minutes away.
Or there are kids up in the
northern part of the county who have
only known the freshwater. And then of
course there are many kids in general
who hardly go outside anymore. So I
love that we give all of these
kids, an experience that shows them how
important our waterways are and that they
can be part of taking care of
it. I love seeing the awe and
the wonder on their faces when they
get to explore the water or plant
smooth cord grass. I love hearing their
excitement and how much they love the
bay afterwards. I also love when we
hear from prior students who say our
program inspired them to go into marine
science. And my favorite quote is by
Baba Duim. In the end, we will
conserve only what we love. We will
love only what we understand, and we
will understand only what we are taught.
So this is a quote that really
inspired me to go into environmental
education and CBA definitely embodies it
100%, which is why I've been with
them for seven years. I never want
to leave. But I would say for
favorite lesson, really anything that we
do, going out into the field. So
of course, our field trips, when we
get to work with small groups during
the summer or homeschool groups, anything
that we actually get to go to
the bay and explore with them and
do the grasses with them, planting them.
I just love getting to do the
exploration along with the kids because it
reminds you of all the little things
that are so exciting.
I will say my sister Callie, who
works here, she did grasses in classes
and that's something she remembers. I
didn't, but she did.
Yeah.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah. I love it when I get
a random kid in a school that
did it previously or even sometimes around
town, they'll recognize me and they'll be
like Spartan alternate flora. Yes. You
remember.
Good job. That's so funny. Yeah. Most
of the time during our, the grasses,
I was on the salinity station if
ever I did it and if there
was even a little bit of time,
I would ask them the scientific name.
And I was like, you got to
impress Miss Amanda for the next one.
And they were, okay, okay. Third graders
mostly fifth graders were like, I'll do
it. The third graders were like, okay,
I'm ready to impress. It was so
cute. And then I guess to finish
things off, if there's anything you'd like
to share with us about any upcoming
events CBA has or new programs you
guys are trying to instill, really?
Anything you want to mention?
Lastly, yeah, so I know right now
we are looking for some more water
quality volunteers for sites in Destin and
in Fort Walton Beach. These sites do
require having a boat to access the
checkpoints and you need to be able
to do this monthly. But obviously you
can email us to get connected with
our monitoring coordinator to get more
details about that. And then as of
right now, we don't have any specific
events planned, but definitely join us on
Facebook. Join our newsletter Email us to
get on our volunteer list for future
events. I do know that in January
and February, we will start looking for
volunteers to help with our grasses and
classes field trips. So those start at
the end of March and go through
May. And we'll be looking to train
volunteers late February and March. So if
you know you're interested in that, go
ahead and email us and we'll give
you more details and get you on
our list.
Well, thank you, Amanda, for joining us
today. And thank you to everyone who
is listening. We will be back in
two weeks with another episode and who
knows what it'll be about. So thank
you.
Thank you. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's
episode of Cultivate Curiosity.
If you have any questions, feel free
to email us at socialmedia@ecscience.org.
Tune in for our next episode in
two weeks!