{"id":5142,"date":"2016-05-02T17:08:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T21:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/?p=5142"},"modified":"2016-05-18T14:28:10","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T18:28:10","slug":"virginia-beach-middle-students-are-saving-the-bay-one-oyster-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/virginia-beach-middle-students-are-saving-the-bay-one-oyster-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Beach Middle students are saving the bay, one oyster at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cLooks like you pulled in a small crab, is that a fish? Looks like a couple of jellies,\u201d said science teacher Maurice Cullen as he looked into the seining net the students had pulled from the water. \u201cJust another day in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Except, this was no ordinary classroom. Students form the Virginia Beach Middle School Environmental club were studying the Lynnhaven River from the shoreline of Pleasure House Point, home of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation\u2019s (CBF) Brock Environmental Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of a yearlong project,\u201d Cullen said. \u201cThe students are working with educators from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to monitor and help determine the health of the Lynnhaven River.”<\/p>\n

Cullen added that the group is doing a lot of different things to help evaluate the Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seining for different types of animals which will tell us if the bay is healthy, that\u2019s one of the things that the students are looking for,” Cullen said. “The more types of animal species we\u2019ve got will help us determine that health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Seining\"<\/p>\n

The environmental club visits Pleasure House Point at least once a month and the students are discovering that their work is important.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we\u2019re using nets to capture organisms so we can tell how good the water quality is,\u201d said seventh-grade student Charlotte Meador. \u201cIf the water quality is not good, some of the organisms could die and others would be affected because they all depend on each other to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Charlotte<\/p>\n

Cullen said that the students are taking an active role.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of our environmental club, we raise oysters on-site to be released on a reef later on in the Lynnhaven River and that\u2019s a good thing. Oysters are a great filter for the bay. We also have some people working with water quality, which will tell us how good the oxygen is in the water, we monitor the temperature of the water. We test for water clarity, the water is actually pretty clear today. So a lot of things are pointing to a very healthy section of river here by the Brock Environmental Center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also on display were crabs, eels and other river and bay life found in the seining nets. Students prepared those displays to share with a special guest that day, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.<\/p>\n

\"Group<\/p>\n

To the students, this environmental project is a perfect example of hands on and lifelong learning, lessons they will carry for a lifetime.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the students don\u2019t have very many outside experiences or outdoor experiences, so they\u2019re very excited to come out here as often as we do,\u201d Cullen remarked. \u201cWe go to our oyster site and at school we go out to our rain garden area, we have a butterfly garden also. To do this and be this hands on, nothing can beat it, nothing. They\u2019re getting so much out of this, it\u2019s unbelievable and it\u2019s something they\u2019ll always remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLooks like you pulled in a small crab, is that a fish? Looks like a couple of jellies,\u201d said science teacher Maurice Cullen as he looked into the seining net […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39,41],"class_list":["post-5142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-science","tag-virginia-beach-middle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5151,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5142\/revisions\/5151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}