Students and educators from Palm Beach Central High School participated in a hands-on day of shark research with scientists from Florida International University’s College of Arts, Sciences and Education onboard R/V ANGARI.
EXPEDITION DETAILS
September 21, 2025
Palm Beach County, FL
Sophia Hemsi
Jordan Meckstroth
Will Sample
Lacy Smith
Davon Strickland
All sharks were fished for, caught, studied and released for research purposes under Florida permits held by Florida International University scientists.
ANGARI Foundation kicked off its Fall 2025 semester of Coastal Ocean Explorers: Sharks with students and educators from Palm Beach Central High School! This group of students are in the “Experimental Design” course at Palm Beach Central High School and had the opportunity to spend a day participating in shark research with scientists from Florida International University’s (FIU) College of Arts, Sciences and Education. Students and educators were taught the ins and outs of drumlines, a specialized fishing gear used for shark research onboard R/V ANGARI, as well as how to build and deploy a baited remote underwater video system (BRUVS).
The team deployed their BRUVS at the start of the day in the Lake Worth Lagoon, with the hope of capturing some of the marine life that call the lagoon home. While the BRUVS sat underwater, the group sharpened their marine species identification skills by reviewing BRUVS footage from previous expeditions onboard R/V ANGARI and from the Global FinPrint database! After an hour of underwater video surveying, the team hauled the BRUVS back to the surface and headed north of Blue Heron Bridge to begin deploying drumlines.
The students were divided into teams, each responsible for building, baiting and deploying their own drumlines. Every group brought positive energy with each buoy toss and cheered on their teammates as they hauled a total of 25 drumlines to the surface throughout the day! Though there were no sharks caught, participants demonstrated their skills in shark research methods and gained an inside perspective on fieldwork as a marine scientist.
At the end of the day, the team gathered to review the footage captured by their BRUVS. The footage revealed some friendly faces in the Lake Worth Lagoon, such as a spotted moray eel (Gymnothorax moringa), great barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda) and multiple snapper species! The spotted moray eel and great barracuda are examples of mesopredators that often fill the role of sharks and rays in an area when they are not present. Although no sharks were caught on the drumlines or BRUVS, students still collected important data and learned that catching zero sharks in a day is valuable data to record. These students and educators brought curiosity and passion to a day of science-at-sea, and the ANGARI team was grateful for another great expedition with Palm Beach Central High School!
This expedition was made possible with funding from the Palm Beach International Boat Show Gives Back grant program.
CHIEF SCIENTIST
Will Sample is a Ph.D. candidate in the Marine Community and Behavioral Ecology Lab at Florida International University. His current research uses both long-term historical datasets and newer methods, such as high-resolution accelerometry, to study the movement and behavioral ecology of juvenile bull sharks. He specifically focuses on the way these sharks may be transporting nutrients across habitat boundaries, how they may be optimizing their movements to save energy and what the long-term implications of different behaviors they specialize in may be. Will’s research in the Florida Everglades studying the ways sharks move through this crucial ecosystem is important for conservation and informing habitat restoration and management efforts. Will earned a B.S. in Liberal Arts and Sciences from Florida Atlantic University in 2018 and has lived all throughout Florida for most of his life, from Jacksonville to Jupiter to the Keys. He is passionate about community outreach and education, particularly regarding Florida’s natural habitats, and currently serves as lead scientist for ANGARI’s Palm Beach County based Coastal Ocean Explorers: Sharks program aboard R/V ANGARI.
