MSI relies heavily on volunteers to carry through with our mission, and many planned events throughout the year. Certain events, such as California Coastal Cleanup Day and Earth Day on the Bay utilize dozens of volunteers in a single day. Others, such as our Fish Data and Summer Marine Camp also use large numbers of volunteers, spread more evenly across seasons and years. We certainly hope to provide a rewarding experience, and maybe even inspire future interest and work in fields related to marine science, exploration conservation, or education. Sometimes we get living proof.

 

Conner Applewhite started her experience at MSI in 7th grade in 2004.  Her parents decided to offer Conner homeschooling in 7th grade after finding that several schools were not making her happy.  Homeschooling was embraced by Conner, and allowed her to follow her passions to study marine science.  She pursued her SCUBA certification, and shortly afterwards became fascinated, or perhaps admittedly obsessed, with sharks. Her mom Googled ‘marine science’ and directed her to volunteer at MSI.

Volunteer Conner Applewhite returns a baby brown smoothhound to its home in the Bay.

Her first volunteer task was pouring through the hundreds of Translating the Tides poetry contest submissions. This is our annual poetry and art competition that received hundreds of submissions every year, and choosing the winners is fun, but very difficult! Conner has volunteered for MSI's Summer Marine Camp five consecutive years. Though her field work on board the R.V. Robert G. Brownlee collecting fish data has been the most challenging and rewarding. One of our most popular and important volunteer programs, fish data volunteers voyage out on our educational Discovery Voyages, and work hard to identify & record data on all the fish we catch. The data is reviewed and then entered into our database of fish we have seen since our inception in 1970! The field research experiences of handling wildlife, species identification, data management and analysis are skills that will hopefully propel her into her future career as a marine biologist.       Now at age 17, Conner is back volunteering for four weeks as part of her internship fulfillment requirement for Summit Preparatory Charter High School. And of course we are thrilled to have her help again! She plans to study marine biology in California, and we know she will make her dreams a reality!

Super Sea-Star Volunteer!