Kaleija Inniss, a Brunswick High School junior, now knows a lot about marine biology in large part because he knew so little about it before completing an intensive ocean science program May 24 at Bigelow Laboratory in Boothbay.

Inniss and 15 cohorts in the Keller BLOOM program were selected from more than 70 applicants to take part in the fiveday program this year.

He applied for the program, not with the idea of marine science in his future, but out of curiosity about the possibility that seeing how sea life interacts could be an intriguing career choice.

“I went there knowing very little about marine science — to see if this feels like something I could be interested in long term,” Inniss said, indicating that the Keller BLOOM experience could have been a “career-changing experience” for him.

While participating in the research program, Inniss noted that many of the other applicants also were novices in marine science.

The program’s coordinators “chose us because we didn’t have a lot of experience in marine sciences — just a willingness to learn” or to gain exposure to ocean science, Inniss said, saying that he was surprised that many of the other students were as knowledgeable as he was about marine science — that is, not very.

The program

Much of the first day of the program consisted of meeting the other participants, touring the facility, learning about the lab equipment and receiving a general overview of how the rest of the week would go.

The 16 students then split into research groups to have plenty of data to analyze at the end of the program.

Plankton, as the base of the food chain, Inniss learned, can have staggering effects throughout the entire food chain, affecting every stage of life.

For the next few days of the program, Inniss and the rest of the group collected samples of plankton for tests, which they then compared to the other groups in a presentation that was shown at their “graduation.”

“I learned a lot in a short period of time,” Inniss said of the five days of intensive research, “and I made a bunch of new friends.”

Though the program didn’t actually deter Inniss from his future career, he said, “The program was awesome. I met great people and got exposed to different kinds of sciences and the equipment they use for research.”

Career in medicine

Inniss aspires to a career in medicine. He’s explored enrolling at the University of New England or East Carolina University after graduating from high school. At this point, he plans to major in nursing with a minor in business management, a path that he hopes will culminate in a health care management position.