BOB (Bringin' Oysters Back)
Oyster Gardening!
Thanks to The Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) and the Annapolis Maritime Museum, Mount View families are able to raise LIVE oysters and learn about the oyster restorations efforts taking place in the Chesapeake Bay.
Thanks to The Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) and the Annapolis Maritime Museum, Mount View families are able to raise LIVE oysters and learn about the oyster restorations efforts taking place in the Chesapeake Bay.
Each month, one family from our group heads up to the Annapolis Maritime museum, where our oysters are living, to check up on the water.
The History Of The Program
2013(fall): Students in Mount View's Green Field Day committee research environmental nonprofits and find The Oyster Recovery Partnership. They decide to help ORP's efforts to build the Harris Creek Oyster Reef. 2014(spring): ORP visits Mount View and provides classroom lessons and demonstrations about the role of oysters in the health of the Bay. Mount View students create and run the BOB (Bringin' Oyster Back) campaign which raises over $5300 for The Oyster Recovery Partnership and funds more than 500,000 spat (baby oysters) for the Harris Creek project. The BOB campaign is featured on ABC2 News. 2014(fall): ORP awards Mount View with the Vernon P. Johnson Exceptional Citizen Stewardship award for its BOB campaign. 2015(fall): The MVMS Green Team attends a pilot field trip being designed by ORP and provides them with feedback. Dunloggin Middle School helps Mount View set up an Oyster Gardening club. ORP coordinates efforts with the Annapolis Maritime Museum so that Mount View can raise a cage of spat on the museum docks. 2016(spring): The MVMS Oyster Gardening Club attends a CBF field trip to successfully release our first cage of spat onto an oyster sanctuary in the Bay. 2016(fall): ORP helps MVMS set up four cages of oyster spat at the Annapolis Maritime Museum. The first after school BOB trivia auction just for students takes place after school. 2017(spring): Adult Oyster Gardeners from Mount View and Dunloggin attend an Oyster trivia night sponsored by The Oyster Recovery Partnership. The MVMS Oyster Gardening Club attends a CBF field trip to successfully release four cages of spat onto an oyster sanctuary in the Bay. 2017(fall): MVMS, Dunloggin Middle, and ORP create a formal partnership of Oyster Gardeners. MVMS Oyster Gardeners set up four new cages of oyster spat at the Annapolis Maritime Museum. 2018(spring): Students construct oyster reef habitat balls with the help of the Coastal Conservation Association. MVMS Oyster Gardeners visit Annapolis Maritime Museum to release their spat into the bay and to participate in lessons which teach them the history of oyster reefs, how to identify oyster reef critters, and the anatomy of oysters (via dissection). |