NORWICH, Connecticut — December 6, 2014 — Members of the Norwich Sunrise Rotary returned to the Norwich Free Academy Friday morning joking about missed detentions or overdue homework, but the classroom they visited certainly wasn't in their lesson plans.
The group recently donated $850 to the rapidly growing marine sciences program, and teacher Seth Yarish invited members to visit the classroom and watch students in action with the collection of critters that now reside in the lab.
Seniors Breanna Salter of Voluntown and Andrew Kinney of Norwich hauled one jittery lobster out of a tank for closer observation in a small plastic bin and put several tiny Pacific shore crabs in a second bin.
Students caught the crabs off Bluff Point during a Project Oceanology trip. Norwich ShopRite supermarket donates lobsters to the lab. The sharp decline in local lobster population makes it hard to obtain lobsters, Yarish said. Students are studying possible causes for the decline, with no answers yet.