Photo by Erika Nortemann/Florida Museum

Sharks, on their own, are fascinating enough for Florida students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Add artificial intelligence to the study of these creatures and their fossilized teeth, and you get Shark AI – a program that is blending paleontology and cutting-edge technology in STEM curriculums statewide. 

Funded by a $1.3-million grant from the National Science Foundation, Shark AI (also known as AI Learning in K-12 with Fossil Sharks) is a collaboration between the University of Florida’s Thompson Earth Systems Institute, UF’s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, UF’s College of Education, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

“Sharks are the hook to get students interested and, with their simple morphology, they are easy specimens to identify using AI,” said Bruce MacFadden, Ph.D., the former director of the Thompson Earth Systems Institute and a principal investigator on the project.

The project builds on students’ natural curiosity about sharks while introducing them to customizable, standards-based lessons in computer science, engineering, and technology through tools like interactive machine learning models. 

To learn how to implement the Shark AI curriculum, 55 educators throughout Florida have participated in Scientist in Every Florida School professional development workshops on UF’s Gainesville campus for the past three years.

Florida, which is a hotspot for fossilized shark teeth, serves as an ideal backdrop for the Shark AI program.

The post When Artificial Intelligence Meets Very Real Sharks appeared first on Go Gulf States.

Beach goers all along the Gulf know that early Summer is a great time for turtle-watching and turtle events. It’s also an important time to watch out for turtle mamas making nests to lay many, many eggs. The University of Florida’s Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research is the place to be to learn even more about these fabulous flippered friends on World Sea Turtle Day!   – Editor

The University of Florida – Thompson Earth Systems Institute is celebrating sea turtles throughout June in collaboration with the Florida Museum and the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research. Celebrate World Sea Turtle Day with the Florida Museum on June 16, and explore more Sea Turtle resources by clicking through the link.

Why are Sea Turtles Important?

Sea turtles have been navigating our oceans for over 100 million years. They play a crucial role in maintaining the health of marine ecosystems. Sea Turtles contribute to ecosystem health in the following ways:

1. Sea turtles contribute to the health of seagrass beds and coral reefs, providing habitat for a diverse range of marine life.
2. As both predators and prey, sea turtles are integral to marine food webs.
3. Sea turtles hold cultural, spiritual, and economic importance in many coastal communities worldwide.
4. Sea turtles attract Turtle-watching tourists to Florida’s beaches, contributing to the local economy.

Did you know that 90% percent of all sea turtles in the United States lay their eggs on Florida beaches? Therefore, the Sunshine State an extremely important place for the conservation of these endangered creatures! Sea turtles are a keystone species. They have been a vital component of healthy and balanced marine and coastal ecosystems for over 100 million years. In fact, sea turtle health can be a very good indication of ecosystem health.

Florida’s beaches and waters are home to five out of only seven sea turtle species in the entire world!

The post Turtle Power! Learn About the Real Heroes on a Half Shell During World Sea Turtle Month appeared first on Go Gulf States.

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Five of Charles Dickens’ great-great-grandchildren and great-great-great grandchildren will celebrate the season with Galveston revelers at Rosenberg Library, It all happens just before the kick-of of the island’s annual Dickens on the Strand weekend. This is the 50th year of the Victorian holiday festival.

Enjoy a panel discussion with Polly Boyd, Mark Dickens, and Deborah Dickens. Hear about their role in keeping Dickens’ stories alive. After the discussion, the library’s Galveston & Texas History Center will provide a short talk and viewing of the first edition copies of Charles Dickens’ works in their collection. There will also be a Dickens-themed Treasure of the Month on the 2nd floor of the library.

Later that afternoon, children, kindergarten age and up may enjoy a practically perfect teatime with members of the Dickens family. Dress up  – costumes encouraged, but not required.

These events are an early celebration before Dickens on the Strand officially starts a few blocks down later that evening.

The post The Dickens Are Coming! Galveston Prepares for a Seasonal British Invasion appeared first on Go Gulf States.

As we careen into the holiday season with visions of pecan pie dancing in our heads, its a good time to reflect on the true origins of our many quintessentially American blessings. This is the story of an enslaved man, Antoine, the de facto grandfather of the American pecan industry. His story makes clear that our gratitude for innovations – the spoils of which we still enjoy today – must go to the man and not to the institutions that bound him and tried to bind his spirit. This breezy telling of “Antoine & the Pecan” was published prior to, but in the same year as a biography on the innovative gardener. Historian Katy Morlas Shannon‘s insightful 2021 biography, ‘Antoine of Oak Alley’ is a book we intend to feature on our pages again in the future.  – Editor

All of those Stuckey’s pecan log rolls we devoured as a kid (and, admittedly, still devour as an adult) may not have been possible without the work of one man – a 19^th century gardener slave from Louisiana named Antoine.

Back in the 1800s, pecans weren’t really new to the American diet. Native Americans up and down the Mississippi River from Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico were eating them for hundreds of years before Europeans first set foot on the continent. When the Europeans did come, fur traders carried pecans to help sustain them on their journeys from the wild frontier to the East Coast. In the 18th century, founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson planted pecans at Mount Vernon and Monticello, respectively, and it’s even said that George Washington always kept pecans as a snack in his coat pocket.

Over in Louisiana, there was a market for pecans and seeing this opportunity was plantation owner Dr. A.E. Columb who attempted to graft twigs from his luxuriant pecan tree that produced large, thin-shelled nuts in copious amounts onto other pecan trees. Like those who had tried in the past, Dr. Columb’s efforts were unsuccessful. Growing frustrated, he heard that there was a talented gardener right across the way at the Oak Alley Plantation. Columb went to pay Jacques Telesphore Roman, the owner of the plantation, a visit. Roman guided the doctor to his talented gardener, an enslaved man named Antoine. After meeting with Antoine and discussing his ordeal, Columb gave Mr. Roman a twig off of his best pecan tree, and, in turn, Mr. Roman gave the graftwood to Antoine. Thus, the ‘Centennial’ became the first variety of pecan that was successfully propagated by grafting.

Unfortunately, not much is known about Antoine other than he was a slave and a gardener and a very adept gardener at that. We know this because Antoine was the first person in history who learned how to propagate pecan trees. That is, Antoine knew how to make near exact copies of successfully producing pecan trees, thereby turning the pecan into a cash crop – not an easy task at the time. Then the American Civil War came along and nearly changed everything.

The post As American as Pecan Pie: The Incredibly True Story of Antoine & the Pecan appeared first on Go Gulf States.

Nunez administrators and facilities staff join landscaping contractors installing the first stanchion for the Voyage Mark II scale model solar system walking exhibit on the Nunez Community College campus in June. Nunez held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the exhibit to the public in September.

“This is an effort to welcome everyone onto our campus to learn about our solar system, our opportunities here at [NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility], and here at Nunez as well,” said Nunez Community College Chancellor, Dr. Tina Tinney. “Nunez’s desire is to be a destination in learning, both inside and outside the classroom.”

Outer space was the focus during a day-long event Sept. 6 on the campus of Nunez Community College.

In addition to Jobs for the Future (JFF) hosting its day-long ‘Space Industries Workforce Strategies’ event, a summit dedicated to expanding apprenticeship opportunities at local space-focused industries, Nunez also hosted the official ribbon cutting for its Voyage Mark II scale model solar system walking exhibit.

The Voyage Mark exhibit spans the entire Nunez campus, marking all major celestial objects in our solar system with stanchions representing the sun, the nine planets, the asteroid belt and the Voyager spacecraft. The educational attraction is spaced to scale to give visitors to the Nunez campus a tangible idea of the distance between objects in our solar system.

Nunez plans to add more interactive elements to the Voyage Mark exhibit in the future. This new trail is one of just 14 in the United States.

The post Space Is the Place: Nunez Cuts the Ribbon on New Scale Model Solar System appeared first on Go Gulf States.

Let the keen eye of the Design Tourist, Karen LeBlanc lead a journey to the world’s largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture!

Florida Southern College offers to guests a variety of campus tours to better understand Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision and process. On Thursday, June 8, to celebrate the occasion of the famed architect’s birthday, the Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture Visitor Center and Sharp Family Tourism & Education Center will offer all touring visitors a free cupcake! – Editor

On land that was once an orange grove in Central Florida, sits the world’s largest single-site collection of structures designed by famed modernist architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Wright, famous for his organic architecture philosophy, designed 18 structures for the college of which 13 were built. He saw the buildings growing out of the ground into the light like a “Child of the Sun.”

The story of how this small private Methodist liberal arts college became an internationally famous destination for architecture tourism begins with an unlikely alliance between Wright and Florida Southern College’s President, Dr. Ludd Spivey.

The post See the Greatest Concentration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architecture in the World appeared first on Go Gulf States.

St. Pete summer camps and the kids who benefit from them have a friend in local nonprofit Creative Pinellas. The organization offers grants to eligible students who wish to attend and make summer fun and productive at any of a number of qualified municipal or nonprofit Pinellas County arts organizations.  – Editor

The Arts Summer Camp Grant is back. This Pinellas County grant was created to make it possible for more young people (ages 5-18) to have great arts and cultural experiences at area arts summer camps.

Eligible campers may apply directly to Creative Pinellas for a grant to attend a session of an arts-related camp program this summer. Camp attendance may be at any one of a number of qualified nonprofit or community arts organizations.

“This is our fourth year of the summer camp program,” said Creative Pinellas CEO Barbara St. Clair. “And what continues to impact our thought process and excite us about this program is that most of the young people who receive grants from us have never, ever gone to a day camp before or experienced a high-quality arts experience.”

The post St. Pete Arts Grants Turn Kids into Happy Campers appeared first on Go Gulf States.

Our friends at Via NOLA Vie know how much we all need to hear this over and over. And they should know; they have a lot of experience surviving the season. Here, they offer a few tips to consider when striving to keep the brain sane and the body not shoddy during the marathon/sprint known as Mardi Gras.  – Editor

Mardi Gras is near, which means it’s time for cheer, beer, and that neutral ground spot we hold so dear. But does that mean Fat Tuesday should literally live up to its name? Here’s what Nolan Ferraro has to say:

During Carnival, we often tend to fill up our stomachs as much as our bead bags. Between the non-stop revelry of parties and parades, it can be challenging to maintain a healthy diet and fitness plan. So what can you do? You can let it all hang out, or you can put a few reasonable strategies in place to keep yourself from embodying the “Fat” in Tuesday. Realistically, you’re going to make some not-so-healthy decisions, so here are five ways to make better bad Carnival choices:

The post ⚜️ 5 Ways to Make Better Bad Mardi Gras Decisions appeared first on Go Gulf States.

Craig McClain, a tall, bald, and bearded marine biologist leads a coastal research institute called the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, or LUMCON, that explores life at the interface of land and sea. McClain studies how living things get food at the bottom of the ocean. LUMCON’s main building hovers over the wetlands on big concrete pilings, driven deep into the muck.

McClain can look out the window at work and sometimes see alligators swim by. He wondered: what happens when they die? If they died at sea, or were washed out, might they provide food to the strange things that dwell in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico? Are they an important part of deep-sea energy cycles? He conjured up a plan to find out, but to carry it out, he would need dead alligators.

The post The Incredible Things That Happen When an Alligator Is Dumped into the Sea appeared first on Go Gulf States.