The Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Coastal Resources Division invites students, teachers and the public to join Virtual CoastFest 2021 on Oct. 5-7 at www.DNRCoastFest.org.

Three days of livestream events will feature online field trips aboard the Research Vessel Reid W. Harris, tours of CRD’s marine biology programs, virtual trips to the beach and more. Each livestream event will include a live question-and-answer session with CRD staff and virtual attendees will be able to ask questions and interact using YouTube.

“While we’d hoped to return to in-person CoastFest this year, we recognize COVID cases are a concern for many members of the public, so we opted this year to offer our virtual programming again,” said Tyler Jones, CRD’s CoastFest coordinator. “This is still a great opportunity for CRD staff to interact with the public and bring the excitement of the coast to an even broader audience.”

Three virtual events will be held each of the three days featuring local celebrity guest hosts, including 104.1 FM “The Wave” morning radio host Joe Willie Sousa and Keep Golden Isles Beautiful Executive Director Lea King-Badyna. The sessions will begin with a brief live introduction, followed by a video highlighting a CRD program and concluding with a live question-and-answer session during which virtual attendees will be able to ask CRD staff about their work.

Although Virtual CoastFest will continue this year, the associated art contest for students has been canceled due to uncertainty with local school schedules stemming from online learning and homeschooling. CRD anticipates bringing the art contest back when school schedules return to normal. Additionally, the sale of CoastFest T-shirts featuring 2019’s winning artwork by Glynn Academy student Shelby Williams of Brunswick will be postponed until the next in-person CoastFest.

CoastFest exhibitors are invited continue to interact with virtual attendees by submitting a 3-5 minute pre-recorded video to be linked on the CoastFest page. These videos should be uploaded to YouTube and a link sent to tyler.jones@dnr.ga.gov by Sept. 30.

Anyone with questions about Virtual CoastFest 2021 may contact Tyler Jones at 912-262-3140 or tyler.jones@dnr.ga.gov.