Total Eclipse of the Eclipse

I started my Monday morning the same way anyone who was excited for the eclipse would; I listened to Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart on repeat on my long train ride to the Children's Museum. I'm a pretty big fan of environmental phenomena, and I was not about to miss the chance to see the eclipse.

Our morning session was a bit quieter than usual, so I wrongly assumed that, despite the museum's advertised eclipse activities, people had chosen to go do their eclipse festivities elsewhere. Boy was I wrong!

What a big beautiful girl!

When we came back from our lunch break, the dock in front of the museum was so packed that it was difficult to move. Fishing rods and accouterments in hand, we wove our way over to the railing to set up the fishing program - the more the merrier! Within seconds people came to check out our touch tank and try their hand at fishing. Realizing that we were slightly unprepared, I ran back to our storage closet to pick up a few extra fishing rods.

I weaseled my way back to our station, only to notice that we had attracted quite the crowd. Zach, my fellow SHE, yelled over the tops of everyone's heads (he is very tall), that in the two minutes I had disappeared, we had caught a lobster! I made my way over to the railing where the confused young man was holding a fishing rod with a lobster hanging on for dear life right at the surface of the water.

Politely nudging some people out of the way, I grabbed a bucket with a long rope attached to it and lowered it down into the water. It took some maneuvering, but we eventually managed to get the lobster into the bucket. With the help of a few other people, we hauled up the bucket and examined our catch; it wasn't just a lobster, it was an enormous lobster!

Zach quickly banded the lobster while I prepared the touch tank for our new friend. Between (safe!!) glimpses at the eclipse, we taught hundreds of kids and their families about the secret and exciting life of lobsters.

Unfortunately, our lobster was just a hair to big for us to keep, so at the end of our session we had to let her go. It was so much fun to have the lobster and to talk to so many kids and families that I had almost completely forgotten the eclipse!

Crustaceously yours,
Melissa

Art in the Sand

Since starting at Save the Harbor last fall, I had heard many times that the sand raking activities we do at the end of the summer are unforgettable. All summer, I had been looking forward to learning to make art in the sand using rakes, so of course I was thrilled when I found out I would have the opportunity to learn how to do it from Andres Amador himself!

We had our first session together on Thursday, where we were joined by a few other members of the youth staff and the office staff at the Curley Community Center. We learned the proper way to hold and use the rake, and different techniques for drawing different lines in the sand. Once we had mastered the basics, Andres guided us through some simple exercises where we got to explore our creativity and the potential of the rakes, including drawing different shapes and designs. At the end of our session, Andres used a drone with a camera to show us what our designs looked like from above. It was such a surreal experience! Things look so much different when you're looking down at them from above.

On Friday, we took our skills out to a much bigger canvas - Carson Beach. We were joined by several groups of kids and a big chunk of our youth staff. Working in small groups, we bestowed the teachings we had learned the day before, tasked the kids with turning the beach into a field of flowers, and then turned them loose. Some of the kids were very excited about making the flowers, but others wanted to further explore the extent of what you could do with the rake, and played around with making abstract designs or writing their name. Again, at the end, Andres showed the kids what they had created from above, and they were very impressed!

After the kids left, five of us stayed behind to learn how to use the rakes to make mandalas in the sand. We each started by brainstorming some practice designs for the mandala on a piece of paper, and then together we chose elements from each mandala to incorporate to the design we were going to create in the sand.

Andres started us off by drawing a set of concentric circles in the sand, and then divided the circles into even parts. From there, we broke the drafted mandala design into separate tasks, and each began working on small parts of the mandala. Before long, each one of our individual parts had become part of a beautiful, cohesive design! The result from above was absolutely stunning; I can't believe we actually made that!

The view from above is so surreal

I learned so much from Andres, and am looking forward to the next opportunity to make creations in the sand.

Artistically yours,

Melissa

Clam-ventures, Continued

If you've been keeping up with my adventures, you'll remember that, despite my best efforts, I haven't been quite as successful with clamming as I'd like to be. So when I found out I'd be heading over to the Curley Community Center to do some fishing and clamming with kids, I was very excited!

So gross but so cool!

When we arrived, the tide was pretty far out - perfect! Olga stayed up at the top of the beach leading an art project, and Eric and I headed down to the shoreline with the rest of the kids to see what kinds of critters we could find in the water. The kids and I grabbed some rakes and a few buckets and set to work scanning the waterline to see if we could find any of the small holes that indicate where the clams are hiding. After much hunting and digging, the kids realized they could find hermit crabs in the water, and set to collecting them in their bucket. I challenged them to see how many they could all collect together, and they immediately jumped on the task.

Resigned but not completely defeated, I kept my eyes down at the wet sand, waiting to stumble upon the perfect clam. The tide was coming in fast, so I knew my time was ticking. I found about fifteen hermit crabs, but not the prize I was really after. After about ten minutes, I bent down to pick up yet another hermit crab, and that's when I saw something very strange.

It was a short, squishy-looking, white tube. Intrigued, I knew I had to poke it. I reached down to pick up this curious little tube, and that's when I realized that it was attached to a clam! No, wait, this WAS the clam! The little clam itself had wormed it's way out of its shell - something I had only ever seen in pictures. What a treat! I called a group of kids over, and while a few thought it was exciting, most thought it was pretty gross and wanted me to throw it back.

I ignored the pleas of the grossed out children and cheerfully dropped the clam into my small bucket. I finally caught a clam, fair and square (no standoffs with seagulls this time), something I'd wanted to do all summer.

Until my next clam-venture,

Melissa

Off to the Races

Often times, at the Children's Museum, we will catch an absurd amount of crabs in our crab traps. Towards the beginning of the summer, it wouldn't be unusual to catch between 40 and 60 in a day! On days when our touch tank is full, it's really quite a sight to see; crabs scuttling over each other to avoid hands and fingers, crabs stacking themselves on top of each other in a Yertle the Turtle-like fashion, and crabs fighting with each other because well, that's what they do best.

One of our friends from the museum came out to race with us!

When I get to talking with parents, they'll often ask me about the crabs, where we got them, and what we're going to do with them. I'll explain that green crabs, the species we almost exclusively catch at the museum, are an invasive species from the Western coast of Europe and Baltic Sea area, and that we like to put them in the touch tank for kids to interact with and learn about what lives in Boston Harbor and, possibly, a little bit about invasive species.

I also like to explain to the parents that, other than touching and exploring with the crabs, we can use them for one of my favorite activities; crab racing. Rumored to be the City of Boston's Next Big Thing, crab racing is a competitive, crustaceous, and irresistibly fun way to get kids involved with our Big Bucket O' Crabs.

The premise is simple; we draw a large circle, which acts as an arena, and draw an X in the middle. Everyone picks out a crab, and carries it over to the circle. At the same time, everyone places their crab on the X and steps back, and then the race begins!

Green crabs, despite their feisty nature, are often quite shy when placed in front of a crowd. Sometimes they need some gentle encouragement to help them become the racing champions we all know they are inside. Poking, prodding, and uplifting sentiments are encouraged!

Eventually, one of the crabs will have a Hercules-moment and realize the hero it is inside, and will start moving outwards towards the finish line. This is when the action happens! In most cases, the other crabs will then be incited to race, and will also head over to the finish line. With baited breath, we wait and see whose crab crosses the line first. The winner is usually paraded on a victory tour, where members of the audience get to have a meet-and-greet with our speedy champion.

You heard about Boston's next big trend here first, folks!
Melissa

A Witch Explorer who is Definitely NOT Afraid of the Dark: A Memoir

Today I discovered a whole new sense of adventure out on All Access! I boarded the Provincetown along with 600 of my closest friends from youth organizations around Boston and headed out to George's Island.

On the short ride out to the island, I made a few new friends. One boy told me all about how excited he was for his first time on the island, while his friend, who had been to George's Island before, filled me in on all the important sights to see while on the island - most notably, the scary dark tunnel at the back of the old abandoned military fort. We also spent some time discussing the trials and tribulations of starting the first grade, and how fast it would take for the Provincetown to travel around the whole entire world (the answer was, they decided, unequivocally, fifteen hours).

Definitely NOT the home to some scary monsters...right?

Another young girl I met filled me in about her life as a witch. Her mom was a witch, and she had a cape AND a hat, which meant she was a witch too. Seems about right, I told her. She must have used her witch powers to identify some sort of energy deep within me, because she told me to close my eyes, and then she told me when I opened them, I would be a witch! It's never something I had ever seen myself being, but we both agreed that being a witch suits me quite well, so I think I'll continue to be one for the time being.

After having lunch on the island, we all made our way over to Fort Warren, which is an old, abandoned military fort. With crumbling concrete, large, cavernous ceilings, and dark creepy corners and hallways to boot, the fort is quite the creepy but exciting place. As soon as we walked into the fort, David Coffin insisted that, since I was a newcomer, I had to run up a dark, tiny flight of stairs.

I poked my head into the doorway, took one look at the stairs descending into oppressive darkness, and immediately refused. Dark! Scary! Mystery! As my peers taunted me for being scared, I meditated on every single terrifying monster that lives in the dark from every singly horror movie I have ever seen, all of which are 100% real. I sighed, committed myself to death-by-being-swallowed-by-the-monster-that-inevitably-lives-at-the-top-of-this-flight-of-stairs, and set to walking up the stairs.

With one hand on the wall, I took another step, and was swallowed by darkness. Okay, not so bad. Another step, and another one, and another one. I was starting to kind of get the hang of this. I even started to feel confident about making it to the top of these stairs! I can do anything!

And then, at the top of the fifth stair, I walked right into a brick wall.

A dead end after just five stairs.

I walked back down the stairs to a chorus of well-deserved laughter. I looked pretty dumb, but at least I pushed myself!

Magically yours,

Melissa the Witch

Definitely Not a Halibut

Yesterday, we were getting settled into our afternoon session in our typical fashion: grab gear from the closet, set up fishing rods, pull up water, call some kids over to fish, and pull up the crab trap to get our touch tank going. Two of the kids were pulling up the trap and it looked like they had a few crabs in there, so I made my way over to the trap to help carry crabs over to the tank.

We pulled the crabs out one by one, sometimes having to herd them with our feet as they tried to escape. After all the crabs had been removed and transported to the tank, we began to seal the trap back up...and that's when I saw it: a leaf? Some algae? I bent over to grab whatever had been stuck in the trap, and shouted, "WAIT! That's a halibut!".

Everyone around me turned to look at me. Eric, standing right next to me, gave me a puzzled look and said "Wait, what?".

I immediately realized what I had said. My Alaskan sensibilities had immediately identified this flat fish as a halibut, but they don't live in Boston Harbor! Mentally smacking myself, I spit out, "No, no, my bad, this is a flounder"!

Our new, small friend

And that changed everything. No longer confused, the youth staff sprang into action to get this itty bitty flounder into some water. After taking a quick look at our young fish, kids ran to get water, relocated the crabs currently vacationing in our touch tank, and brought over the tank for our new flounder friend.

This young winter flounder couldn't have been that old, because he was small enough to fit into the palm of your hand (less than two inches), but he wasn't completely juvenile, because his eye had almost completely migrated to the top of his head. 

The flounder was such a delightful addition to our touch tank! It was so much fun to watch kids' faces as we told them about the amazing secret life of the flatfish. We were able to show the kids the camouflaged top side, and the milky white bottom side, and explain how, as they reach maturity, flounder change colors and one of their eyeballs moves across the top of their head. 

Personally, I think our tiny friend would have made some adorable tiny fish prints, but legally we had to release him because of how tiny it was. 

Until the next fish-venture,

Melissa

STEAM in the Sand and a Seagull Standoff

I love spending my Friday afternoons at Carson Beach because they're diametrically opposed to the well established routine-filled days at the Children's Museum; you just never know what's going to happen!

My hard won prize!

This Friday the tide was out again, so after spending some time working on our boat art project (which is coming along quite nicely, if I do say so myself!) we ran down to the exposed sand goo to look for clams. By now, the kids are clamming professionals, and set right to it digging up clams. I, on the other hand, have proven myself to be an enthusiastic but not-so-successful clammer, and despite my best efforts, found myself empty handed. I decided that my clam-digging technique could use a little help, so I began to walk up to the bath house to grab a rake so I could dig a little faster.

I was halfway through the not-so-pleasant part of the beach where the texture of the sand changes from a fine silt to sharp, pointy rocks, when I heard something fall next to me. Startled, I turned to see what had just made an aerial descent into my personal space - a clam! Knowing that the chances of this clam falling directly out of the sky were quite slim, I looked about, suspecting that a Junior Program Assistant had thrown it at me.

I almost immediately locked eyes with the culprit: a seagull, who had seemingly hurled this clam to the ground in efforts to break it open and eat the insides for lunch. Well, seagull, tough luck, because I had spent close to 45 minutes up to my ankles in sand looking for these bad boys, and I was determined to have one for myself.

The seagull and I locked eyes, and I could see in his beady little pupils that he also felt entitled to this clam, and was quite determined to have it for himself, completely disregarding my intention of using the clam as a tool for scientific exploration and learning. Rude.

After what could have been seconds of eye contact, we both simultaneously made our move: the seagull defiantly waddled towards the clam, but I am, obviously, bigger and faster, and snatched up the clam for myself. Another day, another victory!

Two of my new friends reinforcing their dam (it's a work in progress)

After the kids had lunch and I spent some time admiring my hard-won prize, we grabbed some rakes and headed back down to the shoreline to make some art designs in the sand. The kids experimented with writing their names, drawing self portraits and fish, and creating geometric designs. 

Some of the kids decided that making art wasn't quite their speed, so instead used the rakes to engineer a system of dams and aqueducts. It was an awesome opportunity to get to talk about the rising tide and the structural integrity of sand as the kids tried to see who could get their "pool" to fill up the fastest. To be completely candid, there were some truly impressive feats of engineering out on that beach, and I'm hoping to see if we can use those skills to build even better aqueducts next week!

The day unfortunately had to come to a close, but it was filled with surprises, adventures, and a whole lot of laughs. And if you were wondering what became of my hard earned clam...a kid broke it open to see what was inside it as soon as I walked away from it. 

Your reigning clam champion,

Melissa

Limbs with Limpets: a Resolved Mystery

Check out that mystery hitchhiker on the left claw!

At the Children's Museum, we are pulling up a near constant stream of crabs from our crab traps; there have been days where we catch close to 80 crabs over the course of the day! All the crabs we catch are put into our touch tanks where we can show them to kids and get a close up look at what they look like. It's fun to peer into their beady little eyes, explore what they're hiding underneath their aprons, and see how many legs they're missing. It's also not uncommon for these crabs to have an entire collection of barnacles on their backs!

A few weeks ago, we found a crab with a mysterious hard growth on its claw. Unlike a barnacle, this growth was oval-shaped, smooth, and a dark grey color. We tried to pry off whatever this was so we could get a closer look at it, but it refused to budge! Resigned, we left the crab alone, but we knew we had to figure out what this strange lump was. 

The next morning we pulled up another crab with the mysterious growth. After careful inspection and flipping through our guidebook, we still couldn't identify what it was, so we put the crab back in the tank and pushed it to the back of our minds. After an hour or so, we picked up the crab again and noticed that the mysterious growth had moved! So from there we determined that it was less of a growth and more of a hitchhiker. 

Time passed and we didn't see any more crabs with hitchhikers until yesterday. This particular critter wasn't quite as strong his other brethren we had caught before, and popped off the crab with a gentle nudge. Eagerly, we flipped it over to investigate what had been puzzling us for weeks. 

We found that, as we suspected, the critter had a snail-like foot underneath that smooth grey shell! So we pulled out our guidebook and looked carefully at all the snails, but they all seemed to have long, conical shells instead of smooth, flat ones. So snails were out. 

I reached out to some of the other Senior Harbor Explorers to see if they had any ideas. Jenn mentioned that it might be a limpet, so we reached for our trusty guidebook once more and searched for the limpets. As soon as we saw the first picture we knew that Jenn was definitely right - these hitchhikers were absolutely limpets!

We're so excited this weeks-long mystery was finally resolved. Another day, another critter. Thanks Jenn for your help!

Until our next breaking discovery,

Melissa

Children's Museum Critters: An Inventory of Invertebrates

Viva la baby claw!

It seems like we're pulling up all sorts of fun critters every few minutes over at the Children's Museum. It's been so fun to show the kids what we've found, and to use our resources to learn about the mystery creatures we aren't able to identify. While we have caught a number of fish, I think it's fun to take a look at the invertebrates we are able to put in our touch tanks.

Our most frequent catch are green crabs, an invasive crab from the Baltic Sea that's made itself quite at home in Boston Harbor. Like lizards and sea stars, green crabs can regenerate lost limbs! You never know when you're going to find a crab with a missing leg or claw; it's not uncommon for us to pull up crabs with no claws at all (fondly dubbed "a defenseless" by the youth staff)! A crab in the middle of the regenerative process can be identified by its smaller claw or leg, which we affectionately refer to as the "baby claw".

Every once in a while, we'll find sea squirts, formally known as club tunicates. These squishy little plants are an invasive species hailing from the seas of Asia, and will grow on just about anything that doesn't move. They're bumpy to the touch, and if you hold one, you'll notice they're quite squishy; if you squeeze a sea squirt between your fingers, it will squirt out water (hence the nickname sea squirt)! Essentially, these guys are nature's water guns, and are always fun to use to catch an unsuspecting victim off guard.

Grumpy old man or the face of a spider crab? You decide.

My personal favorite invertebrate we've caught is a spider crab, which, although is more frightening looking than the green crabs, is a much more gentle companion. So far we've caught two spider crabs, and we've gotten mixed reviews from the kids at the museum. I don't know if it's the long, spindly legs or the fuzzy brown algae that grows on their shells, but something about these crabs puts some kids off. Personally, I think they're pretty cute; the tip of their shell comes to a point in front of their eyes, and I think it gives them a likeness to a grumpy old man. Unfortunately, we don't find spider crabs as often as we find green crabs, but it's very exciting when they do decide to crawl into our traps.

We've had such a wide array of visitors at the museum, both human and sea creature, and I can't wait to see what we find next!

Your invertebrate identifier,
Melissa

Arts & Crafts & The Great Outdoors

Everyone loves Fridays; it's the end of the work week, and the weekend lies ahead with all its promises of sleeping in and a new episode of Game of Thrones and not having any real responsibilities for two whole days. For me, I look forward to Fridays because it means I get to spend another amazing afternoon with the kids from the South Boston Neighborhood House out on Carson Beach!

Getting ready to paint...before discovering the magic of fingerpaint

Last week the kids started working on a long-term project of giving a rowboat an artistic makeover. After taking a nice long dip in the water, the kids came up under the gazebo to work on the boat. Paintbrushes in hand, they set to putting their ideas to paper. The idea was that we would take what they painted, cut it out, and decoupage it onto the boat. Maybe my bias is showing a bit, but these kids have a lot of talent! The rowboat is going to look incredible when it's finished.

Naturally, when you have kids, paint, and not enough brushes to go around, paint is going to end up more places than just the paper it was intended for. Once kids figured out that fingers make an excellent substitute for a paint brush, just about everyone in a six hundred foot radius ended up covered in paint. Luckily the paint came right off with a little bit of water and elbow grease. The boat project is off to a great start, and I can't wait to see how we progress next week!

Another day another fish print!

After my afternoon at Carson Beach,  I took my art skills over to Constitution Beach to spend the evening fish printing with kids at the East Boston YMCA's Family Fun Night. We were joined by one of our pirate story tellers, Tony Toledo, and Stephanie, a trainer from the YMCA who was teaching a family fitness class! Tony got down to business right away, telling the kids some incredible stories and helping us build a crowd while Stephanie got her class started.

That night we met some really fun and incredible kids and families, and made some really beautiful fish prints! Due to some strong winds and my own two clumsy hands, I ended up covered in the ink used for the prints. I headed back home drenched in ink, paint, sand, and fish, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Black and white and red and blue and green and pink all over,
Melissa

Discoveries on the Shoreline

Showing off one of his magnificent finds!

Every Friday, we'll be working with kids from the South Boston Neighborhood House over at Carson Beach. We'll have kites, sand art, giant volleyball, excursions down to the shoreline to look for critters, and a really awesome long-term art project. The kids are working with Save the Harbor's amazing artist in residence, Olga, to create a design that will be eventually painted onto a rowboat!

When we arrived at the beach, we noticed that the tide was waaaaaay out, leaving a lot of the beach exposed. The first thing anyone notices when running into wet sand at Carson Beach is that it feels more like silty goo than sand...and it's awesome. Apparently clams think so too, because if you dig deep enough in just the right spot, you may be able to find a clam! You have to be quick, though, because clams can dig, and they're speedy, so looking for clams is almost like racing them through the wet, gooey sand.

Look at how big that clam is!

Grace, Rish, and I helped a few kids hunt for clams down on the shoreline, but as time went on and we discovered more and more clams, we attracted quite the crowd! Soon close to twenty kids were up to their ankles in sand goo, using rakes and their hands to look for clams. Together they found clams of all shapes and sizes - they have a knack for this!

Eventually the tide came back in, and we unfortunately couldn't find any more clams. We did, however, find a whole collection of sea critters. I was running up and down the beach as more and more kids called me over to show me the cool new discoveries they made and help them identify it. The kids found razor clam shells, mollusks, green crabs, hermit crabs, periwinkles (a very cute but invasive kind of sea snail), the remains of some spider crabs, and an amalgam of rocks and shells. At the end of the day we had quite the collection!

Unfortunately, our day was cut short due to rain, but I'm looking forward to spending more time on Carson Beach this week!

Sandily yours,
Melissa

Another Big Catch!

Despite our best efforts, all we've caught at the Children's Museum so far are green crabs. Don't get me wrong - green crabs are super interesting, fun to interact with, and good sports when we have them race each other, but it's nice to have a little variety.

The Children's Museum team finally catches a fish!

Luckily, the Children's Museum brought us out a box of big rubber fish, which were not only fun to throw around, but also perfect for photos that make it look like we caught an actual fish. Not even an hour after we brought out the rubber fish, a young boy thought that he would be a good samaritan and return the fish where they belong - the channel. It was a thoughtful gesture, but we were of the opinion that fake fish don't belong in the real water, so we grabbed our buckets and a big net and set to work.

Sam and I drew quite the crowd as we threw the net into the water, and after a few minutes of trial and error, we managed to get the fish back onto land where it belonged. 

We thought that would be the most out of the ordinary part of our day, but we were wrong; there's always another adventure to be had at the Children's Museum! While we were showing off our impressive touch tank full of green crabs (we had almost twenty in there!), a parent pointed out that there was a jellyfish in the water. I had seen a plastic grocery bag floating along earlier, so I wasn't in a hurry to turn around, but the excitement from the kids and the youth staff confirmed that she was right. 

Once again, we grabbed our big net and our bucket and we set to work. Sam has proven to be an expert at wrangling things with the net, so she took charge and managed to get the jellyfish into the net. We brought up the jelly, dropped him in the bucket, and all gathered 'round to see what we had found.

So enchanting!

So slimy!

It was a moon jelly! These jellyfish aren't dangerous to humans, so we were able to pick it up and see what it was like to hold it. Just like you would imagine, they're squishy and slimy!

Another day, another catch. I can't wait to see what else we snag in our nets this summer!

Here's to bigger and better catches!

Melissa

First Big Catch of the Season!!

I'll be the first to say it - I'm a pretty inexperienced fisherman. My parents love to fish, and tried to teach me years ago, but I never had much success. However, when I realized that fishing was an integral part of what I would be doing this summer, I decided I needed to give it another chance.

One of our first days of orientation was dedicated to spending time out on the harbor, during which we fished for flounder before we took a quick tour of Spectacle Island. The captain of the boat had installed some sort of sneaky fish radar, so he could tell where all the hot spots would be. As soon as we found a good spot, we all broke into teams, shoved some super creepy worms onto our hooks, and went at it.

I was partnered up with Zach, a fellow Senior Harbor Educator, and we immediately dubbed ourselves Team Good Vibes. In the first fifteen minutes or so, everyone around us was hoisting flounders and skates into the boat...except for us. Apparently you can't use positivity and happy thoughts to will a fish onto your hook - who knew?

Eventually the captain of the boat, Charlie, noticed we weren't having a lot of luck and came over to investigate the problem. It turns out we had grabbed one of the only rods with everything set up completely wrong. After Charlie fixed our rod, Zach dropped a line back into the water and IMMEDIATELY hooked a flounder!

So then it was my turn. With another super creepy worm on the hook, I dropped my line into the water and waited. And waited. And waited. And then we moved to a new fish hotspot, where I waited some more. And then some more. For two and a half hours. I never caught anything.

At the end of the day, I was a little bummed. However, knowing that I would spend my whole summer fishing made me feel a little better. I just knew deep in my heart that I would catch something one day.

Fast forward to my first day at the Children's Museum. Our day is split into two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Despite all our efforts, no one at the museum managed to catch a fish that morning, but we did bring up a few crabs.

I'm so proud!

When the afternoon session rolled around, I felt determined. We snagged dozens of crabs in the crab trap, but no...that wasn't good enough for me. Right before we had to pack up for the day, I grabbed a rod, marched to a new spot, and cast my line in the water. Nothing.

Disheartened, I decided it was time to hang up my fishermen's hat until tomorrow. I began to reel in my line, and then I saw it...

A CRAB!! A TEENY TINY CRAB!! ON MY LINE!! THAT I CAUGHT!!

I quickly reeled in my crustaceous friend and ran back over to the team screaming "SOMEONE GRAB MY PHONE AND TAKE A PICTURE".

And they did. Here it is!

And that, folks, is how I got my first catch of the season.

Here's to many more!
Melissa

New Role, Same Melissa

Hi everyone!

After working almost ten months at Save the Harbor as an Environmental Policy Intern, I'm ready to take my work out of the office and into the harbor as a Senior Harbor Educator! This is an exciting new role for me, and I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to help kids learn about Boston Harbor, it's history, and the great little critters that live inside it.

Hangin' out with my good pal Larry the Lobster!

Last May, I earned my Bachelor's Degree from Clark University in Environmental Policy, where I focused on water quality and sustainability, as well as classical clarinet performance (gotta have a little variety, right?). When I began my internship, I was very focused on water quality, but quickly discovered I was interested in youth programs and environmental education. I spent the winter working with some of the other interns on developing a summer program curriculum guide, which aggregated our existing curriculum resources with some new programs. Personally, I think it turned out great and I can't wait to watch it come to life this summer!

I'm so grateful that Save the Harbor has taught me so much about Boston Harbor and what an awesome resource it is, both as a hotspot for recreation and a laboratory for learning. I can't wait to share what I've learned with Boston's kids and families!

See you out there!

Melissa