A grant has been awarded to Dr. Richard S. Nemeth at University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) to develop a plan for the renovation of the Virgin Islands Environmental Resource Station (VIERS) located on St. John, US Virgin Islands. Although VIERS has provided 35 years of continuous service as a learning center for environmental education and research, the outdated laboratory facilities currently limit the use of this facility. Nestled within the pristine environment of the Virgin Islands National Park, VIERS offers a wealth of biological diversity and tremendous potential as a modernized field station. The primary goal of modernizing the VIERS facility will be to stimulate teaching, research, and outreach activities, which, in turn, will facilitate the exchange of information and ideas between visiting scientists, educators, students and the surrounding Virgin Islands' community. During this planning effort, UVI intends to gather information from expert sources and incorporate the best features of a variety of marine labs into the VIERS facility.
A local planning committee will be established and will focus on assessing criteria in five core areas: (1) integrating goals with the Virgin Islands National Park vision, (2) defining the basic functionality of a modern marine facility, (3) determining needs of research scientists, (4) determining needs of educational institutions, (5) developing facility infrastructure including housing, education and research space, and (6) integrating information technology for data processing and communication. The planning committee will assemble a team of marine lab directors or individuals intimately involved in the management of such facilities. Information will be solicited from past, present and potential future researchers from institutes of higher education and government on basic and specialized research equipment and information technology requirements. Faculty leading college courses at VIERS will be interviewed for ways to improve the educational resources. Researchers and educators who cannot be interviewed on site will be consulted via a written survey. Architects will provide plans for facility design to maximize the efficiency of structures and ensure that they are integrated into the natural surroundings. The final step will be to complete and submit a grant proposal for funding from the NSF Field Stations and Marine Laboratories Improvement Program for upgrading the VIERS facility.
The University of the Virgin Islands' Center for Marine and Environmental Studies (CMES) has launched an initiative to strengthen UVI's marine science program with the goal of expanding the opportunities in education and research for the culturally diverse student body at UVI. Improving the facilities at VIERS will facilitate teaching and research and, through community interaction with VIERS' outreach activities, will increase public interest and involvement in their natural resources. Because of the close proximity of all representative terrestrial and coastal marine environments, VIERS provides significant opportunities for both researchers and educators.
