EASTON – In just two days, about 100 youngsters and teachers created 19 heavy concrete reef balls that will provide habitats for a variety of species living in the Chesapeake Bay.
This was the first time Saints Peter & Paul Elementary School in Easton participated in the Living Reef Action Campaign project – and it likely won’t be the last. The fourth and fifth grade students clearly got into the spirit of the ambitious project Oct. 7 and 8.
David Sikorski, executive director of the non-profit Coastal Conservation Association Maryland, explained the project and guided students through the process which got the kids outside and working hard for two mild, sunny mornings.
“He talked to the children about what the reef balls were going to be used as a habitat for – the baby oysters, baby fish, baby crabs,” Principal Sherrie Connolly said. “And he talked about how important those are for the health of the Bay.
Connolly called it “STEM in real life.” STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics
Kids and their teachers worked as teams on the back lawn beside the gym. On Monday, they mixed and poured concrete into molds, creating holes with textured balls and a removable buoy.
After setting up overnight, the reef balls were ready to be unmolded on Tuesday. Students listened intently as Sikorski demonstrated how to unmold the reef balls and encouraged the kids to etch their names on the bottom of the 225-pound structures.
“I think they really connected with (the project), that they’re really taking care of God’s creation,” Connolly said. “I think that really means a lot to them to be able to do something. This is a big thing for young students to be able to do.”
“It connects with religion, as well as science and history,” Connolly said. “They definitely get the connection about taking care of God’s creatures and just appreciating how God made everything.”
“It teaches them something bigger than themselves,” Sikorski said.
The school’s two-day project was part of a larger program called the Living Reef Action Campaign, a component of CCA Maryland that began nine years ago in Westminster, Maryland. The program uses two trailers filled with tools, molds and bags of ready-mix concrete.
“We’re about a quarter of the way to fundraising for (a trailer) specifically restricted to the Eastern Shore,” Sikorski said.
The LRAC “also provides a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) which is a curriculum requirement for students in the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” according to ccamd.org
The $3,750 project at Saints Peter & Paul was sponsored by Baird Private Wealth Management’s Easton office and the St. John Foundation.
After the students removed the molds on day two, they brushed off loose concrete, placed tools and pipes in designated buckets, and figured out how to tug and pull the heavy structures onto a cart and wheel them over to an electric winch to lift them onto a wagon. It was a scene of controlled chaos.
Fourth grade teacher Jill Gill asked one of her teams what they liked best about the project. “Mixing the cement,” was their unanimous response.
One youngster added he liked adding the textured, multicolored balls that created the holes in the bell-shaped reef.
Gill asked another student, “What good deed did we do? Who are we helping?”
“We’re helping the oysters make clean water for the Bay and the river,” one girl answered. Another girl said, “We’re helping the fishes’ habitat.”
The structures were invented in the 1990s and are now used in about 90 countries, Sikorski said.
Wrapping up the project with the fourth graders, Sikorski reviewed the purpose of the habitats and why they couldn’t be placed in the river until next year. The longer the reef habitats sit, the stronger they will become, he said, “and that way, we make sure they last for a very long time.”
The reef balls will be placed at the Cook’s Point oyster reef near the mouth of the Choptank River northwest of Cambridge.
“All the animals will attach to them,” Sikorski said. “There’s lots of baby oysters, or spat, swimming around the Choptank River in the summertime. That’s when the babies are born. So, if we get them in the water by next summer, it’ll be a ready-to-go place for all the baby oysters.”
“There’s also lots of other stuff that sticks to the reefs: anemones and barnacles and mussels and little things we call tunicates, all these little animals filter water (and) eat algae, just like the oysters,” he said. “So, we’ve really helped create an ecosystem boost by working hard together in teams.”
Sikorski, who grew up in the home building business, “the best thing is that (the project) teaches teamwork,” he said. “It’s a nice little spark for these kids to pick up a hammer, to pick up a mallet, to learn how you mix concrete to put the parts together. So, it hits on every single component of STEM.”
He prompted students to give themselves a big round of applause, saying, “I bet you all used muscles you didn’t know that you had.”
