Bottle dropped into Bellport Bay in 1972 as science class experiment resurfaces

As if uncovering a message in a bottle isn’t already a story for the books, there’s even more behind a 46-year-old science experiment East Patchogue resident and metal-detecting hobbyist Susan Hennes found on a Brookhaven beach.

The amber, porcelain-top Grolsch beer bottle was dropped into Bellport Bay in December 1972 by William Kiriazis’ ninth-grade science class to track current patterns of the bay.

“We would see how long it took for the current to carry the bottle to that particular point, then we would map out the current itself,” said Kiriazis, 75, of East Hampton and now retired.

Kiriazis met Hennes on Thursday morning at the end of Bay Avenue in Brookhaven, where she spotted the bottle's white top poking up through the sand. A bottle collector, Hennes, 75, recognized the vintage Grolsch logo and was excited by her find. After reading the note inside — "Please return to William Floyd High School. Very Important to be returned." — she contacted a friend, Linda Fox, who works as a security guard and custodian at William Floyd. School administrators then organized Thursday's meeting.

At first, the bottles contained simple, handwritten notes requesting that the finder return the bottle to William Floyd. Later, Kiriazis said they became more “sophisticated,” and put pre-addressed postcards inside. All they asked was that the sender make note of when and where the bottle was discovered.

About 90 percent of the bottles cast during the 10 years Kiriazis’ students conducted the experiment were returned, he said.

Kiriazis began teaching at William Floyd in Mastic Beach in September 1972. That fall, the chairman of the science department challenged teachers to develop 10-week specialty science courses. Kiriazis chose marine science.

His students went on hikes at Fire Island, prepared meals in the classroom using seaweed they collected from nearby beaches, built and cast plankton nets to learn about marine biology, and learned about current patterns with the bottle experiment.

For the experiment, students boarded a school bus, traveled to a nearby beach and tossed the message-filled bottles into the water. They would either cast them from shore or float into the bay on an inflatable to get the bottle a bit farther out. Some were dropped from Smith Point Bridge.

As the bottles returned — most from nearby communities such as Bellport and Patchogue, and some from communities in Nassau County — the marine science program began to grow.

So, Kiriazis wrote up a curriculum and turned the 10-week program into a 20-week course, he said. A similar program still exists at William Floyd High School, said Christine Rosado, the district’s STEM director.

“As educators, we’re always hoping that what we do impacts our students,” Rosado said. “I think what he did not only impacted the students he had back then, but now it’s going to have an impact on today’s students.”

She said the high school plans to display the bottle and note, which Hennes happily turned over to the school, in their school museum. The bottle, discovered about three months ago, traveled a few miles from the bay to the beach. The note inside was dated Dec. 1, 1972.

Rosado said she thinks some teachers will be inspired to create similar hands-on experiments in the coming school year. That same hope is what drove Hennes to return the bottle to the school nearly 47 years later.

“It’s going to give the kids incentive,” Hennes said. “It gives them incentive to do projects. I think the project really worked out, even though it's 47 years old.”