Day Six - March 28

Last Day of Project Term

Examining a Green Turtle shell

Today was our last full day of Project Term. We went to the Turtle Hospital and learned a lot about the facility and the process of rescuing, recovering, and releasing the sea turtles of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. We were educated on how littering impacts sea turtles greatly. Many sea turtles mistake plastic bags and balloons in the water for jellyfish, which are part of their natural diet. They swallow them and they get stuck in their digestive track and they can no longer digest the

One of the patients at the Turtle Hospital

food they eat. They are also affected by commercial fishing debris much in the same way dolphins are. They get entangled in nets and swallow hooks. The Turtle Hospital was very fascinating and allowed us to understand how pollution affects all sea life.

The tour of the Turtle Hospital marked the end of our intellectual growth experience and we focused the rest of the day on community building. We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant and spent a couple of hours at Sombrero Beach. We had fun interacting with each other and we also got to meet some locals and their cute puppies. From there we changed and headed back to our dorms for some packing. We ended the night with a fun dinner at another local restaurant where we were delighted to run into a girl who attends the Sacred Heart school in Bryn Mawr! It was great to talk to her and her family and discuss the similarities and differences of her school and our school.

We returned to the dorm and held our last nightly reflection led by Micaela, Maria, Abby, and Katie. Ms. Brooks and Mrs. Rumbell surprised us and adopted a dolphin for each of us in our name. The dolphins were assigned to us based on the similarities of our individual personalities and the dolphins' individual "dolphinalities." Sadly, we are all preparing to come home tomorrow. We learned so much valuable information on this Project Term experience and are sad that it has come to an end, but we look forward to sharing all our knowledge about dolphins and other marine mammals with everyone at home.