The Water School

Experiments on FGCUs Kimberly’s Reef range from looking for red tide, gauging the temperature and chemical composition of the water, measuring aspects of the currents in the Gulf of Mexico, and even counting the many fish attracted to the artificial structures. Some of this research is often done by boat. For many scientists, though, the best way to study the reef is below the surface.

In the Gulf of Mexico, seven and a half miles due west of Bonita Beach and 30 feet below the surface grows an artificial reef and living classroom laboratory created by The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University. This Dispatch from Kimberly’s Reef focuses on the fish who live in this new ecosystem and the scientists who are counting them.

Ever since since the FGCU Water School began deploying their underwater classroom and laboratory, scientific research has been underway at Kimberly’s Reef. Professors and students are studying the entire water column surrounding the villages. Already changes are being made by wildlife inhabiting the reef, starting at the bottom or benthic zone.

In the Gulf of Mexico, seven and a half miles due west of Bonita Beach and 30 feet below the surface grows an artificial reef complex created by The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University. This is the latest dispatch from Kimberly’s Reef. Six months after its deployment, the scientific studies have begun.

In the Gulf of Mexico, seven and a half miles due west of Bonita Beach and thirty feet below the surface, grows an artificial reef complex created by The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University. WGCU is producing a documentary about the reef, and providing monthly updates. The latest Dispatch from Kimberly’s Reef features special artwork for the cement culverts created by FGCU's Bower School of Music and the Arts.

A unique classroom is literally growing beneath the waves off the coast of Florida. In the Gulf of Mexico, seven and a half miles due west of Bonita Beach and 30 feet below the surface grows Kimberly's Reef, an artificial reef complex created by The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University. WGCU is producing a documentary about the reef and the planned scientific research around it. In the meantime, WGCU’s Pam James will keep folks informed of progress on the reef and the documentary with the occasional "Dispatch from Kimberly’s Reef." Here is the first.

Florida Gulf Coast University began installing the base of its new artificial reef, named Kimberly’s Reef, in the Gulf of Mexico. Groups of concrete culverts will create an 11-acre underwater laboratory for scientific experimentation and research.

In a talk at Florida Gulf Coast University's The Water School, Maya K. van Rossum urged students and staff to become involved not only in a statewide effort to change the Florida Constitution to include the right to access clean water, but to work to ensure everybody can experience a healthy environment.

Dr. James Douglass of the FGCU Water School, along with two FGCU biology students, Tori Guarino and Carter Oleckna, are on a mission to restore the pond at Fairwinds in Bonita Springs, from both a plant and water quality standpoint. The project could become a model for other communities in Southwest Florida.

Florida Gulf Coast University announced its first partnership for its new Water School on Thursday. It’s official. Mote Marine Laboratory and FGCU have…