The Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, or CACS, would like to offer our sincere thanks to the local businesses and individuals that helped us through our spring coastal ecology school field trip season. Thank you for your time, hard work and financial contributions that helped our programs promote an attitude of stewardship in the next generation of Alaskans.

This year 27 fourth- through 12th-grade classes participated in our overnight Alaska Coastal Ecology programs at Peterson Field Station and Kasitsna Bay Lab. In addition, 10 classes were able to explore plankton ecology on our Onboard Oceanography program.

More than 1,200 students, teachers and chaperones from 12 communities across Alaska participated in these programs during April and May.

CACS would like to give special thanks to Ben Gibson of Roughly Finished Inc., Barrett Fletcher, Karl Stoltzfus of Bay Excursions, Mako Haggerty of Mako's Water Taxi and Connie and Mike Geagel of NOAA-UAF Kasitsna Bay Lab for their extraordinary efforts and in-kind contributions to make our school programs successful this year. Kachemak Bay is home to many True Stars (Evasterias troschelii), but these generous people are the true stars for our educational programs.

Katie Villano, program coordinator

Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies