NYC Free: SUBMERGE Marine Science Festival

POSTED BY
Evelyn Kanter

SUBMERGE celebrates NYC’s coastal waters by bringing marine science to life. It’s a FREE all-day festival in Hudson River Park next weekend, with scuba diving, kayaking, fishing, ship tours, and kid-approved science entertainment and presentations by renowned scientists.

SUBMERGE is Saturday, Sept. 16, 11am to 4pm, at Pier 26 at North Moore Street.

Here’s the schedule:

Research Stations – Experiment, learn and explore! Scientists will share current marine research through interactive demonstrations.

Discovery Lab – Discover the role of microscopic plankton in the Hudson River. Plankton are tiny aquatic organisms that drift with currents and play an important role in the River’s food web. Some plankton spend their entire lives in as plankton, while others transform into adult life stages that we are more familiar with like oysters. Learn more about the life of an oyster and how this bivalve is helping us improve the health of NYC’s waters.

River Ranger Kid Zone – Environmental educators invite budding scientists to observe and explore river science.

Vessel Tours – Come aboard for a dockside tour of the R/V SeaWolf, a research vessel owned by Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. The SeaWolf is an 80 foot long, steel hulled vessel built in 1982. It is ideally suited for extended research trips, large-scale oceanographic sampling, and trawling. Most recently, the SeaWolf has been used for sturgeon tagging in New York and an ocean trawl survey in New Jersey

Kayaking – The Downtown Boathouse will offer free sit-on-top kayaks to paddle on the Hudson River. They give brief instruction and provide all necessary safety equipment as well as changing rooms and lockers and locks. A display on kayak history will also showcase how kayaks have evolved over the years.

Big City Fishing – Drop a fishing line and engage with environmental educators on topics such as water quality, fish biology and more. A fun and educational experience, fishing offers a unique opportunity to learn about local ecology and the many fish species that can be found in the river. Appropriate for adults and kids 5+. Rods, reels, bait and instruction provided.

Live SCUBA Dives – What’s living in the Hudson River? Join The River Project for interactive SCUBA dive demonstrations to find out. Watch SCUBA divers plunge into the Hudson River to collect river specimens in an interactive dive presentation. Dives at 12pm & 1:30pm

Arm of the Sea theater company, based in Saugerties, NY, creates interactive theater performances combining art, ecology and social action to inspire wonder, give joy and enrich the public imagination. This production, The Rejuvenary River Circus, is an allegorical tale that follows Malakai the water carrier and messenger as he travels between Mountain Peaks and the Deep Blue Sea. Along his journeys Malakai encounters a host of creatures, including a lyrical sea turtle, a fast-talking crow, a pair of industrious beavers, filter-feeding oysters, and schools of migrating fish. Each creature offers insights into their particular role in a watershed’s ecosystem services. When the old man falls ill, his granddaughter Rachel is confronted by the challenge of restoring her grandfather, the River, back to health.