Garnet Good Seeds Project
In the fall of 2019, ShoreRivers partnered with Henry Highland Garnet Elementary School, the town of Chestertown, the Chestertown Garden Club, South Fork Studio, and the Kent County Commissioners Office to plan and complete the Garnet Good Seeds placemaking project. The ShoreRivers section of the project was designed to empower the students of Henry Highland Garnet Elementary School to undertake an action project and make their schoolyard river-friendly. They replaced mowed lawn and loose soil spaces to a native plant garden. 250 Garnet Elementary students, assisted by 25 teachers and school staff, 20 community volunteers, and 5 Chesapeake Conservation Corps members. Students planted over 1,000 plants, including inkberry, winterberry (both male and female), summersweet, switchgrass, scarlet oak, sweetbay magnolia, pollinator plants, and herbs for cooking like (basil, thyme, and more, planted for community use). The planting took place in early November; the staging was Wednesday, November 6, and the actual planting was on Thursday and Friday (November 7 & 8). The Good Seeds garden is more than just a garden, though; it was purposefully designed to also serve as an outdoor classroom, learning space, and community placemaking space.
Student-led Oyster Rehabilitation Programs
High school students participating in our Students for Streams program focus on the oyster as a keystone species in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. During an in-class lesson, students test samples from a nearby stream and dissect oysters to analyze their anatomy and determine what biologically enables oysters to filter water. Beyond just learning, however, students have personally assisted the rehabilitation of oysters. In the biology classrooms at Queen Anne's County High School, Kent Island High School, Cambridge-South Dorchester High School, and Easton High School, ShoreRivers provided oyster shells seeded with shells for classes to grow in aquariums. Students monitor the health of the oysters and the conditions of their tank over the course of the school year, and in May/June ShoreRivers staff pick up the oysters to be set in the Chesapeake. This was an extension of a Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy program: Oysters Grow to Know. Additionally, in 2020 we added a new opportunity for students on our field trips: mold concrete oyster shells for rehabilitation. Matthew Gray, a biologist at Horn Point Lab, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, is conducting multiple studies on what can be used to establish new reefs and support oyster population rehabilitation. In support of one of his projects, Kent Island High School students used concrete and silicone molds to create faux oyster shells on which spat could set and form reefs. In the 2019-2020 school year, 213 students from Kent Island High School, 280 students from Queen Anne's County High School, and 79 students from Easton High and Saint Michaels Middle High School participated in our field trip oyster rehabilitation projects. 101 students from North Dorchester High School and 89 from Cambridge South Dorchester helped with raising oysters, but had field trips scheduled for the spring, which have been cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.