Since 1993 the Bridgeport Regional Aquaculture Science & Technology Center has been stoking the minds of high school students interested in careers and lines of study relating to the Long Island Sound and its marine life.
Director Lea Catherman has worked with the school for the last three years as it continues its mission of blending rigorous academic study with the skills and knowledge needed to promote and support the regional aquaculture industry.
“Everything we do here has a theory and an application,” said Catherman. “A lot of the parents of kids that come here just want an A, they want a good GPA. I am trying to emphasize the process is more important. How you got the A is more important than getting the A. What you do with going to that Ivy League school is more important than going to that Ivy League school.”
The model is a deviation from the common refrain of “just go to college and you”™ll figure it out” and takes into account the hyper-competitive atmosphere surrounding the current college application process.
“In education for the last decade we have told everybody you need to go to college if you are going to be successful so everybody goes to college,” Catherman said. “There is some half-truth in that. If you go to college you are more likely to be successful, but just going doesn”™t mean you are going to be successful.”
By asking students to identify what their passions are earlier in their academic careers and offering opportunities for hands-on career connections it becomes more likely students will chart a trajectory for a rewarding and fulfilling career, she said.
That”™s why at the roughly 36,000-square-foot facility on 60 St. Stephens Rd. in Bridgeport students participate in wide variety of vocational and academic curricula including marine manufacturing and design, underwater robotics and aquaculture farming.
This range of studies allows students like Emelia Ordner to design and handcraft paddle boards while fostering her interests in the field of marine biology in the hope of joining the U.S. Navy, Rebeca Spear, who originally joined the school with an interest in marine science, has since taken to her experiences in woodshop, a hobby she learned with her father when she was younger.
“If they are passionate it is easier to help them succeed,” Catherman said.
Yet, few students go on from the school to enter Connecticut”™s aquaculture industry, she said.
“The hard part is the industry is not big,” she said. “We are trying to develop the aquaculture industry in Connecticut. That has been a mission of the school since the very beginning.”
The Connecticut Department of Agriculture estimates shellfishing in the state is about a $30 million industry supporting more than 300 jobs.
However, that is not to say students do not enter aquaculture. Asian markets such as China and Japan have drawn students from the school, particularly as indoor aquaculture gains popularity.
Students at the aquaculture school learn the ins and outs of farming fish in an expansive indoor hatchery, growing a variety of species including tilapia and barramundi for consumption and decorative koi.
Students also experience aquaculture in the Sound by harvesting the school”™s oyster beds and sugar kelp patches in addition to participating in efforts to grow and reintroduce lobsters to the Sound to restore populations.
Students are involved in the raising and harvesting of species and crops from start to finish and receive certified training on seafood market preparation and operation in order to sell the school”™s seafood stock in a twice-weekly onsite market, Angie”™s at Aqua Seafood Market.
The school draws students from the greater Bridgeport region, including school districts in Fairfield, Milford, Monroe, Shelton, Stratford and Trumbull. It has also drawn professionals seeking to adapt to changing environmental conditions and standards in the Sound”™s aquaculture industry.
Bren Smith of Branford is one such ocean farmer. His company, Thimble Island Oyster Co., sustainably harvests shellfish and sugar kelp, the latter in a method first employed by the aquaculture school.
“We did this whole model of an industry where we can grow seaweed and sell it throughout the seafood market and it has been picked up by a couple of local guys who used to be fishermen,” Catherman said. “He was bringing his seaweed to us to be manufactured and a few other people were starting to get into it and it was getting to the point where it was too large for us. We do it as a learning experience for the kids but we are not a commercial processing plant, so he actually is making a co-op in New Haven for all the other seaweed growers to start processing.”
With the school located in Bridgeport, Catherman, who hails from Idaho, puts a particular emphasis on engaging students from underprivileged communities, a background she strongly associates with.
“I grew up in the middle of nowhere with no money,” she said. “I fell in love with Bridgeport because of this school. The kids that I met from Bridgeport at this school were hard-working and passionate and saw education in the way that I saw it, which is education is your ticket out.”
The school of 441 students has evolved well beyond its original focus as a vocational school. It expanded in 2010 to include new facilities that allow for more honors science programming as agriculture has evolved beyond traditional techniques to include biotechnology and marine science as key components of the industry.
But for students who do not pursue careers in aquaculture the school provides something else of value ”” a solidification of purpose, said Catherman.
“Having a purpose and the drive, grit and tenacity to keep going when you hit setbacks is huge,” she said. “What I tell families and students is that the biggest advantage of doing a program like this, aside from the rigor and applied sciences, is you are doing something that is totally different from everybody else. When you go to apply to your Ivys you are competing against kids who also have the GPAs and the extracurricular activities and the SAT scores, so if you can stand out from everybody else who is going to college you have a better chance.”
