Take a sneak peek inside FGCU’s The Water School set to open in January

Reporter: Lindsey Sablan
Published:
FGCU’s The Water School.

Florida Gulf Coast University students are moving in this week, and as they take over the campus, they’ll notice construction on a new building.

The latest addition, a four-story $57.9 million building for The Water School, opens in January. We took a look inside to see how it’s progressing.

Kacy Rodriguez is a second-year grad student and says, “the thing that excites me most is the probably the study rooms … I’m studying algae, freshwater algae,” specifically Lake Trafford.

Greg Tolley, the school’s executive director, says the students had no home base. “It’s very important this building is connected with our fieldwork.”

“We have state-of-the-art research labs,” Tolley explained, “Some of the equipment I can only pronounce using their acronyms. LCMSMS or GCMSMS. What they largely do is measure things in stuff.”

The majority of the space is dedicated to labwork for freshman through grad students.

But another cool feature is this room – an aquarium with a window for anyone to look in.

“We’re going to be able to house marine and freshwater organisms to do studies to learn more about them, to learn more about how the environment impacts them,” Tolley added.

If you’re having a hard time envisioning it.

Here are a few renderings the university provided. The program has been instrumental in studying our water quality and hopes to be a home base for water advocates.

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