High school students and Olympia oysters are benefiting from a partnership between the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, scientists and educators.
Team Longboat, a group of students from Port Townsend’s alternative learning school OCEAN, are helping operate an Olympia oyster nursery on the docks of Port Townsend’s Northwest Maritime Center to fulfill their science project requirement.
“When you’re teaching maritime topics, having some kind of real-world application for what they’re learning makes that education stronger,” said Simona Clausnitzer, Northwest Maritime’s Career Explore and School program manager. “Their experience situates it within the community, the place and the world, so it makes the education—including using math and science skills—more meaningful.”
Funded by the tribe and developed and overseen by the Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF), the small nursery system is filled with baby Olympia oysters from PSRF’s hatchery and seawater from Port Townsend Bay.
Students are learning how to feed the oysters (science) using a ratio of micro algae paste mixed with fresh water (math) and figuring out how much food will be needed each week (more math). Students also will figure out the number of animals in the tanks and their density as they grow.
“These settling tanks will help increase the overall capacity of producing Olympia oysters for restoration projects in the Salish Sea,” said Neil Harrington, the tribe’s environmental biologist. “More oysters in the sea improves water quality and helps bring back this iconic species to areas where they grew historically.”
The partnership made sense, as PSRF has been trying to scale up its production while also wanting to add an educational component to their work.
“It’s awesome to partner with these educational organizations,” said Ryan Crim, PSRF’s hatchery manager. “This fits within our goals, and it fits within their goals. It’s just a really good match.”
After the oysters are released into north Puget Sound in the early summer, the nursery will be disassembled and stored at the Jamestown tribal campus until the following winter when it will be reinstalled for the next round of Olympia oysters.
Students from Team Longboat clean and set bags of empty shells that provide cultch—a hard surface where oyster seed can settle—in the Olympia oyster nursery at Port Townsend’s Northwest Maritime Center. Photo courtesy of the Northwest Maritime Center
Story by Tiffany Royal
