Summer Oyster Education

What happens when two groups of young women wanting to do a service project at Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve met the Oyster Corps? First, a lot of vertical oyster gardens (VOGs) were made. Second, the role of oysters in the ecosystem became much clearer, and beyond that, a positive, constructive role for humans in the watershed became inspiring. After building the VOGs, the girls examined some live specimens from VOGS that had been hanging on a local dock. The summer spotlight at the reserve this week is the concept of turbidity. It proved relevant to this group as they now understood that detritus is an essential part of the estuary food web. One of the groups also stayed for the Wednesday Wonders journaling series and took part in the week’s theme – finding mysteries. They created marvelous nature journals on everything from white indigo seed pods to fungus on a leaf. The next day, two more separate groups, (Quincy 4-H, and OTG Invasion) from the northern parts of our watershed participated in a similar water quality project followed by a live VOG exploration with our digital microscopes.