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Ocean Research and Conservation Association LAGOON GUARDIANS Grant: $20,000 Funds Used: $20,000 Total Children Served: 70 unduplicated children served Cost per child: $285.71 Focus Area: After School and Summer Recreational Activities and Academic Enrichment Taxonomy Number: Alternative Education HD -0500, Adopt An Environmental Cause JD- 2000.0300, Community/Nature Area Cleanup/Enhancement Projects JD -2000.1500, Estuary Protection JD1500.9550-900, Biological and Life Sciences Research TR -1000 Program Description: The Lagoon Guardians program aims to empower the next generation of environmental stewards by engaging middle school -aged students (11-15 years) in scientific research, citizen science, and scientific literacy. The program allows Indian River County (IRC) students the opportunity to participate in innovative, impactful, and applied research experiences surrounding the Indian River Lagoon and its watershed on topics including water quality monitoring, habitat restoration, living shorelines, ORCA's one health initiative, and eco- toxicity. The objective of the Lagoon Guardians program is to develop a community of educated and informed IRC middle school -aged citizen scientists who are dedicated to the conservation and preservation of Florida's fragile coastal ecosystems. By offering students the ability to participate in this free, academic enrichment opportunity that utilizes monthly after school science research lessons, monthly field-based scientific sampling, as well as, a summer program we are inviting students to immerse themselves in assisting ORCA in finding solutions to real environmental problems plaguing our lagoon. Collaboration: For the 2019-2020 school year, we collaborated with four Indian River County middle schools including Gifford Middle School, Sebastian River Middle School, Sebastian River Junior Charter School, and Storm Grove Middle School. Our School District of Indian River County partner schools hosted the monthly after school program at their schools while our Saturday laboratory portion of the program was held at ORCA's Center for Citizen Science located on City of Vero Beach property. Open ROV graciously provided a remotely operated vehicle for students to utilize while in the field to collect data about the Indian River Lagoon. GOALS/OUTCOMES REPORT Goal 1: To enhance depth and breadth of understanding of the Indian River Lagoon of participating students as measured by pre- and post- evaluations. Baseline: Pre-program and post evaluation results administered by trained scientists familiar with the Indian River Lagoon. Result: Lagoon Guardian students independently completed a pre-program evaluation to establish their baseline and background knowledge about the Indian River Lagoon and their attitudes toward environmental responsibility and ethics on the first day of class. A general summary of the pre-test results indicated that students have a fairly good base knowledge of the lagoon. However, ORCA continued to emphasize environmental responsibility and stewardship throughout the Lagoon Guardians program. As a result of COVID-19 and School District of Indian River County closures, we were sadly unable to conduct one in -class and two field-based Lagoon Guardian lessons for our Sebastian River Middle School and Storm Grove Middle School partners and one in class and one field- based Lagoon Guardian lessons for our Gifford Middle School and Sebastian Junior Charter School partners. Consequently, we were unable to complete the entire science research program, as well as unable to distribute the hard copy post-test evaluations to student participants. Therefore, ORCA converted our paper copy post -evaluations into an electronic fpmrpat and