Creating Environmental Leaders

Year after year, our Marine Studies program remains the best in the state of Florida because of the experiences and resources our students exclusively receive.

In 2014 - 2015, Canterbury was chosen as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Adopt-a--Drifter partner. Through this partnership, students personally deployed a NOAA drifting buoy from USF’s R/V Weatherbird II. After students deployed the drifting buoy, they used GPS satellite data to track the drifter across the Gulf of Mexico and into the Atlantic Ocean.

In summer of 2015, 10 upper schools students attended a diving research trip to Roatan, Honduras. This diving trip focused on lionfish research. The students eradicated 107 lionfish and performed research, including gut content analysis on the fish that were caught. Canterbury alumnus Preston Buchanan ('14)--who, at the time was a senior--created a documentary based on this experience, and in November 2015, he won FIRST PLACE in the Student Film category at the Blue Ocean International Film Festival in Monaco for his film about the plague of lionfish in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf. View the film:

More Marine Leadership Experiences

• In 2015, four upper school students were invited to the Eckerd College Research Symposium to present their research on local bottlenose dolphin populations. Students in the upper school marine biology course and dolphin research club boarded Canterbury's boat to observe and photograph bottlenose dolphins.
• The 2016 ROV (Remote Operated (underwater) Vehicles) teams won first and second place in their divisions for the FLORIDA MATE ROV competition.
• In 2014 - 2015, Canterbury held four beach cleanups and removed more 150 bags of trash from the environment.
• In 2014 - 2015, Canterbury students grew and planted over 5,500 marsh grass plants to help restore coastal habitat for wildlife.
• In 2015, Canterbury received $5,000 from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program Grant to have students develop a Tampa Bay Buoy that records ocean data such as temperature, salinity, and more.
• A 2015 issue of ORIGIN magazine lists Canterbury’s former Director of Marine Studies Jenna (Cummings) LoDico as one of their 100 Ocean Heroes.