People know that the health of a mother, and the environment in which she lives, influences the health of her baby. Still, it may come as a bit of a surprise that a similar relationship holds true with one of the ocean’s oldest inhabitants: corals.

“I call them the Female Dream Team,” said BIOS educator Kaitlin Baird The Bermuda Program, designed for high school and college students, began in 1976 as a way to encourage students to consider careers in marine, atmospheric, and oceanographic sciences. It is part of BIOS’s Ocean Academy, a suite of hands-on programs offered for 10-to 21-year-old Bermudians that centers on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) topics. Last year, 1,390 local students and teachers were involved in Ocean Academy programs

Corals, with their calcium carbonate skeletons and symbiotic photosynthetic algae, are among the first organisms to be negatively impacted by climate change. Warming waters cause coral to expel the algae, called zooxanthellae, while a gradually acidifying ocean, resulting from increased amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolved in the seawater, can weaken and even dissolve coral skeletons.