Palm Beach Day Academy students to help local researchers track marine debris

Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News
·1 min read
The ANGARI Foundation wants citizen scientists to take to the beaches and report any drift cards found along the shoreline.
The ANGARI Foundation wants citizen scientists to take to the beaches and report any drift cards found along the shoreline.

The ANGARI Foundation, a local marine science nonprofit, is partnering with Palm Beach Day Academy and other organizations for its 10th biannual Lagoon Drift Card Study.

The study aims to help researchers understand how marine debris travels and accumulates along the coastline. It also serves as an avenue of engagement with the public to discuss the issue of pollution and its effect on coastal water.

Drift cards will be released at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday from multiple points around the Lake Worth Lagoon and Intracoastal Waterway, with students releasing cards from the West Palm Beach Public Dock.

More: Study to examine how trash moves through Lake Worth Lagoon

It marks the fourth release in which Day Academy students and teachers have participated.

Though most drift cards beach along the Lake Worth Lagoon and Intracoastal Waterway coastline, cards have been reported as far south as Pompano Beach, and as far north as New Smyrna Beach, just south of Daytona Beach.
Though most drift cards beach along the Lake Worth Lagoon and Intracoastal Waterway coastline, cards have been reported as far south as Pompano Beach, and as far north as New Smyrna Beach, just south of Daytona Beach.

Anyone who finds the bright yellow 4-by-6-inch decorated drift cards can email a picture with the date and time they found the drift card to lagoondrift@angari.org.

Other partners for the study include Florida Lights & Power Manatee Lagoon, Friends of Palm Beach and Lagoonfest.

Those outside Palm Beach County are welcome to scour their beaches, as cards have been reported as far north as New Smyrna Beach, south of Daytona Beach, and as far south as the Hillsboro Inlet in Pompano Beach.

Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach Day Academy students to help track marine debris