Summer Camp Recap!

A big congrats to our education team at the Discovery Center, who are wrapping up summer camp this week! We had a total of 140 children join our camps for seven weeks, ranging in age from 6 to 12. Seven kids received scholarships - we’re so grateful for our scholarship fund donors.

Campers learned all about the Tampa Bay estuary and the different marine life that resides in it, as well as learning how to better care for our ecosystem. Our education team took campers snorkeling, explored the bay aboard our eco-vessel, and even visited the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Pete. We are full of gratitude for our educators, summer camp counselors, and our education interns, who all played a huge role in helping future environmental leaders fall in love with our oceans. We asked them to share some of their favorite summer camp memories below!

“My favorite memory from camp was watching the kids find dozens of sand dollars while snorkeling. A few campers proclaimed, ‘I'm rich!’, after collecting so much 'ocean money', as they called it. I also loved seeing the campers creativity shine during art activities where they had to create a new species.” - Zoe Neumann, Education Specialist

“One of my favorite camp memories was when the kids were snorkeling and we found tons of red mangrove propagules floating around us. We collected them and pretended that we were wizards and the propagules were our wands.” - Kelsey Weeden, Camp Counselor

“The best part of summer camp was being able to use all of the great amenities the St. Petersburg Pier has to offer. From the splash pad to the playground to spa beach, the campers never stopped having fun!” - Zoe Caraffi, Education Coordinator