We welcomed so many excited school groups on board this week; some came all the way from North Carolina. Several groups got to experience the ship at night and camped here. Students assisted in calculating salinity of water found at different parts of the Charleston harbor and mapped the tides. This was the final week of school for many of our groups; thank you for spending some of that time with us. Go forth and enjoy your summer break!
      In-between the school groups and prepping summer camp activities, we saw a tagged manatee near the pier. US Fish and Wildlife think this particular manatee was caught and tagged in southern Georgia and has been to South Carolina before. The satellite tags help scientist track the migratory patterns of these animals.

Events in the near future:
     The history department is busy preparing for the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Ten World War II veterans will be on board and recounting their experiences during D-Day. For more details please visit the Patriots Point Facebook page. Details here

    We also have an oyster reef build coming up on June 13th. For more details please visit the Blended Learning at Patriots Point Facebook page. Details here

This week in science:
    NASA is sending a group to work in the Atlantic Ocean to prepare for future moon expeditions! Read more here

We had a blast with all of the school groups we welcomed aboard this week. We want to say thank you to those schools for coming and visiting us while they are wrapping up the school year! The groups helped us clean up a simulated oil spill and created new land forms in our augmented reality ocean. The students experienced our animal room and got up close to some of our animal friends, such as a sea star and a horseshoe crab.
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Our classroom said goodbye to the last of the tree frogs this week. The frogs were raised from wild caught tadpoles.  A new project is starting up here, blue bird habitat boxes! The first box was installed on Friday and all of us are hoping to see birds soon! The owner of Wild Birds Unlimited of Mt. Pleasant came and put it in for us. She also answered a few questions for us in this video clip.