Sharing a Love of Teaching (and Oysters)

Since 1990, NOAA's Teacher at Sea Program has sent more than 850 educators to sail aboard science vessels, to monitor fisheries and ocean trends and to return to their classrooms with firsthand experience of what it's like to live and work at sea. And the program-which is about to celebrate its 35th anniversary-doesn't stop there, with resources and an alumni network that continues to provide support to educators.

As we start the back to school season, on this episode of Dive in With NOAA Fisheries, we'll meet one teacher at sea who's returning to the program after participating in 2007. Roy Arezzo is the Teacher at Sea Alumni Association, NOAA Fellow for 2024-2025. His love of field work and a passion for aquaculture and the waterways of New York made him a natural fit. At one of his first teaching positions, he introduced his students to a program called Trout in the Classroom, where fish are grown indoors and then released into the wild. That endeavor led him to a partership with the Bronx River Alliance, starting an oyster gardening project with 10,000 baby oysters-which kicked off nearly a decade of fisheries and aquaculture work, right there in the classroom. Hear how his experience with Teacher at Sea allowed him to bring resources and connect his students to research, and even inspire new career paths.