Coyote class of 2022 alumna Kayla Nazario returned to the Cambridge Marine Science classroom as part of a community outreach project for one of her college courses, teaching students about Florida’s own natural history.
“So, this month we were learning about upland habitats, and that’s the main habitat of Central Florida and surrounding the Four Corners area so I figured it’d be perfect to talk about it at the school,” Nazario said. “I talked about who I was, what I do, what uplands are, what animals live there, and what people can do to help. My overall goal was just to get people caring about things.”
Nazario now attends NOVA Southeastern University as an environmental science major, with a minor in marine biology. She noted that the opportunity to take Cambridge Marine Science at Four Corners Upper Campus helped to affirm this decision, but that her love of the ocean stretches back to elementary school, when she wanted to be a dolphin trainer.
“I took Ms. Tripp’s AICE [Cambridge] marine science class, it got me thinking that ‘Hey, maybe that dolphin trainer thing from elementary school wasn’t crazy’ and we watched this documentary about corals and coral bleaching, and it shook me, I wanted to do something about that, I wanted to change it,” Nazario said.
Part of Nazario’s desire to foster change was to get students interested in the environment. She was more than pleased with how her presentations went, explaining that what started off as two 10-minute presentations took up the entirety of both class periods.
Cambridge Marine Science teacher Karen Tripp shared that Nazario was a hardworking student during her time at FCUS, who did well on the Cambridge exam. Tripp was excited to see Nazario pursuing environmental science and share this with current students.
“I was kind of touched, when she said that, you know, the class that helped her make her decision,” Tripp said. “(It) wasn’t the only thing – she had done other stuff outside of school that made her also veer towards that path – but it’s exciting. It’s nice that maybe in the future she’ll be able to help with [global] issues.”
Although Nazario’s presentation focused on the environment, another goal for her presentation was to give high school students a glimpse of college life. Students had plenty of questions about how college differed from high school, especially senior Joseph La Verda, who is currently applying to NSU to study marine biology.
“I liked [the presentation] a lot. It was very intriguing because I already toured NSU and I really liked it,” La Verda said. “She was showing us some of her lab work and it seemed very cool and interesting, and it made me more excited to hopefully go to NSU and do it myself.”
While Nazario, who is currently a sophomore at NSU, has adapted to college style learning, some aspects of higher education had a steeper learning curve than others. She was grateful for her experience with the Cambridge program, though, and that she was able to earn some college credit ahead of time.
“FCUS is interesting, because the Cambridge tests definitely are a taste of college level exams, but it’s nowhere near the workload college gives you,” Nazario said. “It was definitely something to get used to, but I will give [this] advice to those who want to pursue higher education: prepare yourself to actually learn how to study and work yourself to the bone.”
Two years out of high school, Nazario still holds many memories of FCUS, even though she has settled into college life at NSU. She hopes to move forward and continue to raise awareness of environmental issues, excited to begin this journey where she had once learned of them in the first place.
“It was really weird being back, because I mean I’d spent 7 years of my life there, so I knew the halls and stairways and everything like the back of my hand,” Nazario shared. “It was interesting to see how everything had changed, but [it] still was the same Four Corners I’d went to.”
