Sea Perch: A Real-World Experience of the Scientific Process

By Division I Media & Journalism reporter Elliot

Many classes at Meridian change year to year, but Sea Perch is an annual project for Division II MST students. For this endeavor, groups of 8th graders engineer and create a remotely operated submarine.

First, student pairs come up with a question that they strive to answer through submarine experiments at the Charles River. Some students collect water samples and test it for nitrates and phosphates, while others study the current differences. With this data, they write a lab report about how they got the water samples and the results. As MST student Emi said, “Sea Perch is a unique and an interesting learning tool that helps us as students really learn more about the scientific process.”