Dip your toes into a career underwater. This summer, the Texas State Aquarium is recruiting high school and college students who see potential in diving into a career in marine animal care.
“Our aquarist, our marine biologist, our nutritionist, and water quality,” said Annie Vlach, volunteer program manager.
Trained staff at the aquarium will guide students through what courses, internships and volunteer work they need to in order to get a head start in their marine animal care careers.
“The biggest highlight of the program is figuring out how accessible these careers are these are careers that we need to see more of,” said Vlach.
But the program won’t be classroom style. Vlach says the Animal Science Exploration Program will be more non-traditional.
Students will participate in hands-on sea turtle enrichment, they’ll learn about caring for rescued sea animals, and they’ll even get to watch a Caribbean shark feeding.
“We will continue on from fish and herpetology and have programs in bird and mammal,” said Vlach. “Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation and marine mammal too.”
It’ll be a jam-packed program, but Vlach says once the youngsters get a better idea of what they want to do with their careers, hopefully it’ll be smooth sailing from there.
The Animal Science Exploration Program for high school students is schedule for June 27 from 5 to 7 PM.
The college oriented program is scheduled for July 25 from 5 to 7 PM.
Each program is $120 per participant, or $60 for aquarium members.
An adult is required to accompany any participant 17 and younger. Admission for an escort is $10 each, or free for one member.
