Marine Biology Students Learn About Life Along the Missouri

ISD marine biology students traded the classroom for the riverfront, exploring aquatic life and cleaning up debris along the Missouri River. Nearly a dozen students joined teacher Leslie Mallinson for a boat trip from LaBenite Park for the unique educational experience.

“Many may think what happens along the Missouri has very little to do with what happens in our oceans,” Mallinson said, “but those people would be wrong.” Mallinson knows this firsthand. While studying marine biology in Australia two years ago, she found trash from Kansas City (a plastic bread rack) along a remote island beach. “That’s what this river trip was all about,” Mallinson said. “Students learned how easy it is, if we don’t cleanup our shorelines, for trash and debris along the river to float thousands of miles downstream.”

This trip along the ‘Mighty Mo’ was in conjunction with the Missouri Department of Conservation and the Healthy Rivers Partnership (HRP). HRP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting people and communities to the Missouri River through education and river cleanup efforts.