“Save The Beach” In Your Own Classroom

September 27th, 2010 by Lindsay

Hurricane Earl threatened the Chesapeake in early September this year. Photo source: NASA

The devastation hurricanes can cause in the lives of humans is obvious – the Chesapeake Bay region saw it particularly bad with Hurricane Isabel in 2003. The effects on the environment may be less obvious, but these storms can stir up a lot of sediment that can harm shorelines and wildlife. But aquatic grasses can help lessen those effects by creating a barrier during damaging storms.

A few storms have threatened this year, but so far we’ve escaped unscathed. That doesn’t mean you can’t take the opportunity to teach your students about the effects of hurricanes and the importance of underwater grasses.

In this lesson plan from the Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE), your high school students can participate in a hands-on activity where they get to “Save the Beach” during a hurricane.

Setup for the "Save the Beach" activity, including fan, sand, barrier, and tape sticky side up. Photo source: COSEE

Using many common household items, students must build a barrier representing underwater bay or sea grasses to keep “sediment” (sand) from making its way to the “beach” when a large fan is turned on to simulate a hurricane.

The lesson asks students to make a connection between the way we protect our houses from hurricanes and the way we should protect our shorelines from them. By having students work in small groups to see who can create the best barrier, the lesson plan allows for some friendly competition as well as learning what methods did and did not work.

Once the activity has been completed, students will understand that underwater grasses perform a very important ecological service by stabilize sediments that could otherwise make water murky and difficult for aquatic life to survive.

Additional Resources
COSEE’s Observing the Ocean
Sediment, soil and rocks teaching resources – Bay Backpack
Aquatic grass SAV teaching resources – Bay Backpack

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Lindsay Eney is the Communications Staffer at the Chesapeake Bay Program.

Maryland incorporates EE into curriculum

September 23rd, 2010 by Lindsay

Environmental Education advocates are celebrating a small victory in Maryland this week as the State Board of Education voted unanimously to incorporate environmental education into the state curriculum.

The board did not pass the motion to make environmental education a graduation requirement, but it will be embedded into the curriculum to offer all students the opportunity for EE. The topics will  be worked into elementary and middle school curricula as well, ensuring that students receive EE opportunities throughout their school careers.

High school students will not be required to take additional classes in order to graduate, but will have environmental topics worked into their already required classes, such as biology, chemistry and earth science. Under the new requirements, school districts will be required to report how they have incorporated EE into the curriculum every five years.

Many are seeing this as a small victory with a long way to go. It is still possible that Maryland will see an EE graduation requirement in the future, but this is at least one step to make Maryland students more involved in the environment. The hope is that teaching students the basics of environmental issues will help create stewards of our environment for the future, working, for example, to help with the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay.

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Lindsay Eney is the Communications Staffer at the Chesapeake Bay Program.

Get Nuts for Clean Water

September 20th, 2010 by Lindsay

photo credit: .Larry Page, Flickr, Creative Commons

Field studies are a great way to get your students involved in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, but they don’t always have to take place off of school grounds. There are plenty of things you and your students can do right on your campus to help learn about the environment and perform restoration activities. If you are part of the Potomac River watershed, you should consider the Potomac Watershed Partnership and Potomac Conservancy’s Growing Native program.

The Growing Native program is designed to have volunteers of all ages collect native tree seeds across the region. Once these seeds are collected and dropped off at a designated collection site, they are donated to state nurseries in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, where they are planted and used to restore streamside forests throughout the Potomac River’s watershed.

Since the program began in 2001, more than 50,250 volunteers have collected more than 150,600 seeds for Growing Native. Your classroom or school can be a part of this great effort in the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay watershed!

The Growing Native website has a full section devoted to educational resources so that you can teach your students how healthy forests can lead to healthy water in the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay. While the weather is still nice and crisp and as nuts and acorns begin to fall on your schoolyard, get your students outside to “get nuts for clean water” by collecting and identifying the tree and shrub seeds that can help the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay!

Visit the website today to learn more about how you can begin collecting, register your group and find the donation site closest to you!

Additional Resources:
Growing Native.org
Forest teaching resources – Bay Backpack
Forest field studies – Bay Backpack

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Lindsay Eney is the Communications Staffer at the Chesapeake Bay Program.

Sowing the Seeds for an Outdoor Classroom

September 13th, 2010 by Kris
Students outline the location of their wildlife habitat using string.

Student measure the size of their wildlife garden. Photo credit: Farmwell Station

Farmwell students digging holes for the plants that make up the butterfly garden. Photo credit: Farmwell Station

The seeds for what would become Farmwell Station Middle School’s outdoor classroom were figuratively planted when life science teacher, Cynthia Walsh attended a box turtle monitoring training, sponsored by Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

As a Master Naturist and the adviser to the Naturalist Club at her school, Ms. Walsh felt a schoolyard habitat project would provide her club members with a meaningful community experience and serve the entire student body with a space to use as an outdoor classroom.  And don’t forget the benefits of the outdoor classroom to wildlife as well.

Her overall goal was for students to learn that everyone can do something to help conserve wildlife, even in urban Loudoun County, Virginia.  With assistance from the school’s shop class and the Virginia Bluebird Society, the 25 member Naturalist Club installed a bluebird trail on school grounds, as well as phase one of their landscaping project adjacent to the 7th grade wing.

Plans are underway to complete a monarch butterfly count and collect additional field data that complements the scientific investigation strand of the standards of learning.  Phase two of the project is expected to include an ever increasing number of students, the development of a rain garden to filter runoff from the school roof and parking lot, and additional plantings and other elements for the outdoor classroom.

Additional Resources
Schoolyard Habitat Guide – Fish and Wildlife Service
Schoolyard Habitat Lesson – Bay Backpack

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Kris Jarvis works at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of Environmental Education.

Why Teach About Blue Crabs?

September 6th, 2010 by Lindsay

Blue crabs make great subjects to investigate in your classroom.

There isn’t anything more Chesapeake than the Bay’s signature crustacean, the blue crab. Blue crab’s scientific name Callinectes (meaning beautiful swimmer) sapidus (meaning savory) pretty much gives away its importance to the region.

Why should YOU teach about blue crabs?
These feisty crustaceans make a great topic to study in your classroom because they are a keystone species in the Chesapeake Bay. Blue crabs serve as both a predator and prey in the Chesapeake food web.

They are prey for large fish, birds and even other blue crabs. Yet they are also the chief consumers of the benthos or bottom dwelling organisms like small fish, worms and plants.

Along with being a vital part of the ecosystem, blue crabs are the base of a large commercial and recreational fishery in Maryland and Virginia.  It is estimated that more than one-third of the nation’s blue crab catch comes from the Chesapeake Bay, bringing in more than $50 million per year to the region.

So how do YOU teach about blue crabs?
There are already tons of teaching resources about blue crabs. You can use blue crabs to teach about predator/prey dynamics, food webs, habitats, migration, economics and the impacts of pollution on a species. To help you get started take a look through the resources below:

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Lindsay Eney is the Communications Staffer at the Chesapeake Bay Program.