Riverview High's AquaDome teems with life
Riverview High School students work on final set-up for AquaDome, an agriscience, aquaculture and marine science learning center, on the schools Sarasota campus on Thursday. The greenhouse for breeding fresh and saltwater marine life will be open to public this Saturday and will soon serve as an educational field trip destination for elementary school children.
By Christopher O'Donnell
Herald Tribune
Friday, May 4, 2012 at 4:19 p.m.
SARASOTA COUNTY - About a dozen growths of coral donated by SeaWorld Orlando lie submerged in a 600-gallon fiberglass tank at Riverview High School.
Riverview High School Saturday will unveil its new $250,000 AquaDome, a 30-foot by 72-foot aqua-culture greenhouse that will be used to teach fish farming and marine science.
Members of the public are invited to tour the facility and attend the public grand opening from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
The ceremony includes a showing of the school's educational film "Stars to Starfish."
Riverview High School is located at 1 Ram Way, close to Proctor Road.
Keeping alive the delicate marine creatures — which can perish from even slight variations in water temperature — is the responsibility of junior Matt LaVigna who every day checks the levels of ammonia, nitrate, calcium, and the temperature and salinity inside the tank.
The fledgling coral reef in the school's new $250,000 aqua-culture greenhouse is not only a learning tool but will also be an attraction for about 8,000 elementary and middle school students who already visit Riverview's planetarium.
The vision is that after stargazing, students will move onto the greenhouse — dubbed the AquaDome — where they can touch starfish, feed hungry tilapia and koi, and help to build a reef ball destined for the Silver Tooth reef off Lido Beach.
The greenhouse will also transform the school's Aqua-Science program that currently has about 150 fish, mostly stored in a small room next to a science lab.
Students will now get more hands-on experience breeding and nurturing thousands of both fresh and saltwater fish including tilapia, koi and clown fish. They will grow mangroves, plankton and cordgrass, a species used to prevent shore erosion.
There will be opportunities to design brochures and a website to market the fish for sale to local stores and restaurants. The proceeds will pay for the cost of running the greenhouse.
The varied marine life will become subjects for science experiments. Students interested in engineering will be able to work on complex water filtration systems.
"There are not many opportunities for kids this age to do hands-on science," said Katrin Rudge, marine-science honors teacher.
The 30-foot-by-72-foot greenhouse cost about $250,000 to build and equip, with most of the funds coming from grants from State Farm and the Aquaculture Review Council. Local architecture and construction firms also donated in-kind services.
Around 150 students take classes in the aqua-science or agri-science programs at Riverview.
They attract students interested in working in fish farms, aquariums, bait shops or in the field of marine biology, said Jada Thompson, who teaches classes in both disciplines.
In setting up the greenhouse, teachers took full advantage of the expertise of some of their students.
Senior Justine Cavender took care of half a dozen tilapia swimming in a new converted concrete burial vaults that hold up to 400 gallons of water.
That included taking daily water samples to check the PH level of the water was right for the freshwater fish.
Tyler Fushikoshi, 18, designed the complex filtration system for small tanks that funnels water through a bewildering array of pipes into a sand-bed filter that removes unwanted bacteria.
"Not a lot of kids get to say, 'Hey, I built that,'" he said.
Facts
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Riverview High School Saturday will unveil its new $250,000 AquaDome, a 30-foot by 72-foot aqua-culture greenhouse that will be used to teach fish farming and marine science.
Members of the public are invited to tour the facility and attend the public grand opening from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
The ceremony includes a showing of the school's educational film "Stars to Starfish."
Riverview High School is located at 1 Ram Way, close to Proctor Road.
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