Barrier Island Botanist 2024

By Heather Bariso, Coastal Educator

During the fall of each year, the Bald Head Island Conservancy holds its annual Barrier Island Botanists (BIB) program in coordination with Brunswick County Public Schools. Last year, our BIB field trips hosted 888 students on Bald Head Island! This year, the start of our field trip was delayed due to the flooding in Brunswick County, but we were still able to bring over 636 students and will host the schools who were not able to attend in the spring. In total, the number of students we anticipate to bring this year is over 1,000, including the accessible classrooms of multiple schools. We have been able to share the island with students on the autism spectrum, as well as students that utilize our beach wheelchairs. Last year, we had the privilege of assisting a blind student by creating an activity booklet in braille for them.

The Bald Head Island Conservancy ran BIB in 2018 and 2019 from a Duke Energy grant, paused in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, and brought the program back in 2022. Since the pandemic, BIB has been made possible by a donation from Jim, Devon and Sinclair Brown. A typical day of BIB consists of around 60-70 students traveling to Bald Head Island and joining BHIC staff in activities around the island. The field trip focuses on botany to align with North Carolina’s educational environmental science standards for the sixth grade. BIB takes place near the marina with three different stations: the coastal dune station at Access 5, the saltmarsh station at Marina Park, and the maritime forest station near the Old Baldy lighthouse. At each station, students learn about the plants on the island, including their role in maintaining dune structures, how marsh grasses survive in brackish water, and the impact of live oak trees in stabilizing the interior of the island.

This year, we added a new component to BIB in the form of an anonymous survey. We worked with UNCW student Joy Winton on her Honors Thesis to craft a survey on the effects of nature connectedness after completing BIB. Students received a 5 question survey that asks them their feelings on environmental science, knowledge on barrier islands, coastal dunes, salt marshes, and maritime forests, and how they felt about the Barrier Island Botanist field trip. No personal data was gathered from the students, and they completed the same questionnaire before and after completing all 3 rotations on the field trip. One student wrote, “I enjoyed the Barrier Island Botanist program a lot and hope to come back again.”

Teachers also get an anonymous survey to record their feelings about our field trip. One teacher wrote, “The science booklet the students used and completed at each science station increased the students’ engagement and helped the students to understand what they were exploring and learning on Bald Head Island better. It also gave them an opportunity to summarize what they learned. The staff and interns are very professional and knowledgeable. They are very enthusiastic and work great with the students. This is an excellent science field trip and I look forward to having my students attend every year!”