Volume 19, Number 6 • November-December 2001

Aquaculture in the Classroom

Students in teacher Bob Foor-Hogue's science classes at South Carroll High School not only built this aquaculture system, but use it to raise fish to release into streams and rivers that lead to the Bay.

What do you think about when you think about aquaculture? Catfish in Mississippi ponds? Salmon in cages along the coast of Maine?

Educators like Adam Frederick and Bob Foor-Hogue think of ecology. And biology. They also think of calculus and physics, of water pressure and biofilters, of tanks that teachers can build themselves. They think of students learning about all these things, using live fish, and then they think of those same students releasing fish they have raised into Chesapeake tributaries, part of a statewide grassroots restoration effort.

Frederick, a marine education specialist for Maryland Sea Grant Extension located at the Center of Marine Biotechnology, and Foor-Hogue, an award-winning teacher in the Carroll County Public Schools, have been working to create a network of "aquaculture educators" in Maryland. By partnering with local school systems, they are seeding a number of model programs that use aquaculture as a tool for teaching science.

Frederick and Foor-Hogue, along with Sea Grant educator Jackie Takacs, have organized a series of workshops entitled "Aquaculture in Action" to engage educators in "hands on" experience for six days to:

learn techniques for designing, building and setting up a successful aquaculture system
gain experience with the tools and techniques for monitoring an aquaculture system including lab-based activities for students
develop a network of raise and release programs that incorporate a variety of Chesapeake Bay species
learn techniques for monitoring and restoring local wetlands by field study of the South Carroll High School Wetland Restoration Project
learn grant writing techniques

As part of the program, teachers and students have released fish - striped bass, for example, in Maryland's Sandy Point State Park - in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, using stripers provided by the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory. They have also learned how to maintain aquaculture tanks in their own schools, and how to write grant proposals for additional support for their science work. For more information, check the web at www.mdsg.umd.edu/Education/AinA/. Or contact Adam Frederick at frederic@mdsg.umd.edu.

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