Maritime Aquarium celebrates Summer Academy student learning at Family Night

NORWALK, Conn. — Nearly 500 Norwalk students and their families will gather at The Maritime Aquarium on Thursday, July 30, for Maritime Summer Academy Family Night, an annual event celebrating the conclusion of the four-week summer learning program.

Family Night gives students the opportunity to share what they learned with their families and showcase marine science projects they created throughout the summer while exploring topics tied to the Aquarium’s exhibits and Long Island Sound.

This year’s student projects focus on marine life, with kindergarteners studying turtles, first graders learning about horseshoe crabs, second graders focusing on seals, third graders exploring sharks, and fourth graders studying jellyfish and plankton. Middle school and mixed-grade classes selected topics based on student interests.

Throughout the program, students visited the aquarium, participated in lessons led by Aquarium educators, and explored Norwalk Harbor aboard the Aquarium’s research vessel.

The Maritime Summer Academy is a partnership between The Maritime Aquarium and Norwalk Public Schools that launched in 2021 to create a more engaging summer learning experience for students identified as needing additional academic support.

Now, it has grown into a program that combines classroom instruction with hands-on learning and includes students from all 13 Norwalk elementary schools and five middle schools.

“An incredible amount of work goes into this program, on the part of Norwalk Public Schools administrators and teachers, Aquarium staff, students and their parents,” said Lauren Magliola, associate director of education at The Maritime Aquarium. “Family Night is a time to celebrate all that the students have experienced and accomplished.”