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MATES students help design clam-growing program
By DANIEL NEE For The Press | Posted: Saturday, February 20,
2010 |
The results of Rick Bushnell’s work have been lying on the
floor of Barnegat Bay for the past five years but may soon
be more visible due to a program designed by students from
the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science.
Bushnell, of Surf City, is president of ReClam the Bay, an
organization he started in 2005. The group’s members have
deposited more than 5 million baby clams and 600,000 oysters
into the bay that runs nearly the entire length of Ocean
County.
The students from MATES in Stafford Township are helping to
design the classroom program that ReClam the Bay hopes will
expand to more schools next year.
“What we’re doing here is creating a test system so other
schools throughout the state can eventually raise oysters in
their own classrooms,” said Jason Kelsey, a biology teacher
at MATES. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to create a model for
other schools to use. It’s something to get the kids
involved in a project a little more hands-on, and to show
them a significant piece of Barnegat Bay right in the
classroom.”
The MATES project has juniors and seniors in Kelsey’s class
caring for several oyster tanks in their classroom and
measuring salinity and other variables to determine the best
environment in which to raise shellfish in a school setting.
At the end of the school year, the oysters will be released
near the sedge islands west of Barnegat Inlet.
“The project is great,” said Brennan Batalla, 17, of Lacey
Township. “We learn about the bay, how to clean it up and
make it a better place for all the animals that live there.”
Spreading the messageReClam
the Bay sees the partnership as a chance to spread its
message. While the group maintains its original mission of
restoring the bay’s shellfish population, members have
started visiting Ocean County schools to teach them about
the importance of the Barnegat Bay estuary and how it
affects people across the state.
“My dream has always been that schools close to the bay
would have an opportunity to go to the bay and do something
where they could learn about the environment in their own
backyard,” said Jim Merritt, program director at the Sedge
Island Natural Resource Education Center at Island Beach
State Park. “Shellfish, for some reason, were of great
interest to kids of all ages. They really appeal to people,
and that became the hook.”
As part of the program, students learn about the importance
of the bay estuary and the science of shellfish. They also
learn about the problems the bay’s shellfish population
faces, including increased nitrogen levels due to runoff
from fertilizer. After that, the students begin raising
their own shellfish in tanks.
“The key is getting the kids physically involved in
everything,” said Merritt. “This isn’t a school assembly
program. It’s hands-on, and these kids are monitoring the
watershed with their teachers and are staying involved
long-term.”
Armed with seven upwellers — underwater tanks that keep baby
clams safe from the elements and predators — scattered
across the bay from Beach Haven to Brick Township, ReClam
the Bay members solicit donations each year to purchase
millions of clam larvae from hatcheries. They grow them
until the clams are ready to be deposited into the open bay.
“Clams are a broad-scale indicator of water quality in the
bay as a whole,” said Bushnell, whose organization partners
with Rutgers biologists each year to plant the baby clams,
known as seed clams. Each fall, new seed clams are placed in
the upwellers, and the previous year’s seed clams — which
will have grown to about the size of a fingernail — are
deposited at strategic points across the bay.
“We grow them from the top of the bay all the way down to
the southern mouth of the bay,” said Bushnell. “In the old
days, people really knew the ebb and flow of the bay, and
now we’re in the process of redeveloping that knowledge.”
Beyond Ocean County
This year, ReClam the Bay has extended its educational
program beyond Ocean County, using Web conferencing software
to connect local students with their inland counterparts,
many of whom may visit areas within the bay’s watershed each
summer.
The first link was between students at G. Harold Antrim
Elementary School in Point Pleasant Beach and students in
Holland Township, Hunterdon County. The goal of the program
is to engage students statewide on the importance of
maintaining clean water.
“As much as it’s about growing shellfish, there’s a bigger
picture,” said Bushnhell. “The hope is that people will
continue to be fascinated with the environment and how to
improve it. Things are changing for the better, and we need
to keep them on that track.”
