Oyster Gardener

So, my budding environmentalist needed to do a service project for Girl Scouts to earn her bronze award. There's not a lot out there for such a small child to do that is very interesting... unless picking up trash at your local park is interesting to you. With the help of her grandfather, she selected a community service project sponsored by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation: becoming an oyster gardener. The idea is that they will grow baby oysters into bigger oysters and these oysters will be given back to CBF to be planted into the Chesapeake Bay. Oysters are good for the bay because they filter out lots of the junk (that's a technical term actually) in the bay. Nonetheless, last fall she and Papouli went to CBF and made cages to store baby oysters in. They put the oysters in cages at the end of the pier.

They (meaning Papouli) monitored the cages throughout the winter to make sure that they didn't get into the cold air. Apparently, oysters will die in cold air but NOT in cold water.

Finally, this June they took the oysters out of the water to clean the cages and return the oysters to CBF.

What a cool project, huh!!! I think that they are both committing to raising/growing more oysters next year!