GIN Conference and More!!

Many people in our world believe that being part of an environmental group just means recycling or doing stuff that involves plastic bottles. Let me tell you, I was one of those people, I admit. Then I got involved in Sea Savers and started learning the meaning of what it really means to be a person who loves and cares about nature. This doesn’t mean that I am just writing to make people reflect, of course. I am writing because I want to be a spark in people’s head to inspire them to make a change not to just forget after 5 minutes of ‘quick reflection’. Sea Savers is an student organization dedicated to the protection of the coral reefs of the Dominican Republic. Our main focus is the lionfish. We have fantastic and really brave girls that presented our country as well as our organization in the GIN conference in Costa Rica. These girls made a fantastic and educated presentation that involved all their knowledge and experience about this topic. They also expressed their points of view and their ideas about saving the coral reefs through our intellectual activities. These girls were strong enough to show all their knowledge and love about nature in a room full of people that were also interested in knowing how we can change the world and make it a better place for the next generations. So, that’s Sea Savers, our goals and dreams. We don’t simply participate in activities that involve posters saying “save the world” but rather present ourselves to the world as leaders that want to create a spark, a bright shine in people’s mind not just a phrase that’ll last for 1 or 2 hours.

Children are the future!

Because the Sea Savers know this to be true, we've sent over a few representatives (including Bianca, Maria Jose, and Laura) to the 5th grade classrooms. They touched over the basic facts about coral reefs and lionfish and were surprised to find out how much the kids already knew! They've been studying these topics in their own classroom in order to study how ecosystems work and why it is important to protect them. There were some trivia questions and silly games to help them remember which kind of coral was staghorn and elkhorn, and they had a blast! Keeping the 5th graders under control wasn't always easy, but they were mostly a very attentive and active audience. 

Article by: Laura Losmozos

CMS Team Drift and the Sea Savers

The Sea Savers have been working with CMS' robotics team, Team Drift for a few months now. After numerous meetings and information sessions, It's my delightfull pleasure to inform you about Team Drift has
finished design of a lionfish-diminishing, poulation-controlling robot as the glorious result of our collaboration. Now, what the actual robot does in order to control this invasive species is still uncertain, since the following image is merely a "first draft". The
CMS robotics team has been extremely helpful through out this process, they've been completely willing to do anything form a lionfish crash
course all the way to attending one of our Sea Saver meetings outside
of school. Thanks a lot to Team Drift for your cooperation, the Sea
Savers look forward to our continued work together.

by: Maria Laura Leon

How to Help

If you have an iPhone or a Windows Phone download the application called Commit2Act By TakingITGlobal and any time you consume lionfish take a picture and upload it through this application as evidence that you carried out an action and gain points for your efforts.

Special thanks to Michael Furdyk who introduced us to this application and included eating lionfish as one of the actions.

Our adventure to Banco Léon

To spread awareness about our cause, last Friday two of our Sea Savers, María Jose Fernandez and María Laura Leon, stole fifteen minutes from the monthly Executive Staff meeting at Banco León. They were gratefully asked to put forward a presentation at their lunch meeting, which served our infamous lionfish, in order to inform the busy execs about the exotic predatory species. In their presentation, besides updating the group about the origin of the fish and the uprising market being created for them in the Dominican Republic, the girls enlightened them as to where they could purchase or consume the fish.

The places where lionfish are currently being sold and consumed in Santo Domingo include:

Super Mercado Nacional

El Barrio Chino

Restaurante El Vesuvio

Parque Nacional Aquatico La Caleta  

COPRESCA y Centro Aquatico El Carey   (829) 278-4874

Article by: María Laura León

Our New Fishy Friends

Sharkie and Spike have been living in their tank by themselves for a while now, but not anymore! Ruben Torres contacted Maria Jose and donated two new lionfish to our school. One of the lionfish has transfered to Sharkie and Spike's tank in the high school guidance office, and another has found its new home in Mrs. Gamache's 5th grade classroom. Their names have no yet been decided, but hopefully they will continue to educate the people of CMS about our cause in helping to eradicate their growing populations. Would this be considered ironic because they seem to be invading our school as well? Maybe! But in the end, these measures have been taken in order to spread the knowledge further and more thoroughly.

Article by: Laura Losmozos

The Great Barrier Reef

Isn't the ocean magnificent?