European green crabs and Asian shore crabs are invasive crab species taking over our intertidal zones. They are destroying eelgrass beds and preying on soft shell clams and other small shellfish. Sign up for the Intertidal Crab Challenge this fall to join a growing network of thousands of youth, educators and community members across the Northeast working to understand how the populations of invasive crabs are changing and where they could have the greatest impact in the future.

The Intertidal Crab Challenge will kick off with live virtual meetings with the project’s lead scientists, Marissa McMahan from Manomet and Elizabeth Stephenson from the New England Aquarium. During this challenge, students will build background knowledge around intertidal zones and the species of crabs within them and head out to local shorelines to collect data. The GMRI team will share project updates and emerging questions as they come up throughout the challenge period. The challenge will wrap up with a virtual gathering in which students and lead scientists share observations and questions from their work in the field. Students that are not able to join the live session may contribute comments or video clips ahead of time to be shared with the community.

Support for educators in the Intertidal Crab Challenge include:

• Virtual educator information session on Thursday September 21st, 3:30-4:30 p.m. to discuss the research project, how students can get involved, and resources to support educators. Watch the recording here.
• Ready to use, NGSS- aligned classroom resources, including class slides, videos, games, identification materials
• Ongoing support from the project team

Benefits to students include:

• Connections to professional scientists and a networks of peers involved in the Intertidal Crab Investigation
• Experience with fieldwork (aka fun exploring the shore!)
• An authentic context for building STEM practices, ecosystem knowledge and understanding of localized impacts of climate change
• Experience contributing significant data to an ongoing research project

Contact Abigail, [email protected] with any questions.