OUR PARTNERS

Our Partners

Our partners are:

Tampa Bay Estuary Program
Michael Middlebrooks - University of Tampa, Marine Biology
Regan Fennessy, Tampa Bay Watch
Daniel Hammond - Environmental Lead, Freese & Nichols
Tate Vangellow, Everglades Foundation
Bonnie Eaton from Jane Goodall's Roots and Shoots
Southwest Florida Water Management District - SWFWMD SPLASH Grant Team
Katie Murray, USF PCGS, Digital Storytelling
Brian Cook, PLA, ASLA - Applied Sciences, Urban Design
Brian Rosegger, Lost Coast Oyster Company
Whit Remer, City of Tampa, Director Sustainability & Resilience
Kayla Caselli, City of Tampa
Thomas Ries, Ecosphere Shoreline Restoration

Our Grants

Enhancing Environmental Education

Through Local Ecosystem Restoration

SUMMARY:

Wilson Middle School proposes an innovative educational initiative, "Enhancing Environmental Education Through Local Ecosystem Restoration," aimed at transforming the learning experience for students at Wilson Middle School through Project-Based-Learning. This project, supported by generous educational grants, will empower our students to engage in high-quality local assessments deeply rooted in real-world scenarios. By immersing them in hands-on discovery education, we aim to cultivate a profound understanding of the significance of bivalves, water quality indexes, oyster-bed rehabilitation, oyster shell recycling, mangrove propagation & stewardship, seagrass recovery and shoreline restoration.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES:

Estuary Partnership: Collaborate with local estuary partners engaged in oyster restoration projects in Hillsborough Bay and McKay Bay, offering students the opportunity for authentic field experiences.

Guest Speaker Engagement: Host guest speakers in our classroom to enlighten our students about the vital role of seagrasses, mangroves and bivalves in improving water quality, and teaching us tangible project-based-learning solutions like vertical oyster gardens.

Community Restoration: Deploy oyster reef balls and shell bags at a nearby Hillsborough Bay location, showcasing our commitment to preserving Florida's ecological heritage and propagate young mangrove plants and seagrasses within our project area of the bay.

Educational Experiences: Participate in "Estuary Edventures" provided by Tampa Bay Watch, offering students marine fauna trawling, laboratory activities, and insights into estuarine ecosystems. Learn about Shoreline Restoration through printed curriculum from the Everglades Foundation and the Oyster Habitat Restoration Monitoring and Assessment Handbook. Maintain safety at all times while using oyster habitat restoration equipment both inside and outside of the classroom.

Biomimicry Learning: Foster hands-on learning that transcends traditional classroom settings, allowing students to design a living shoreline, with a focus on biomimicry principles.

Environmental Challenges: Equip students with an understanding of the environmental issues, such as microplastics, lionfish, and other invasive species affecting estuaries.

Sustainable Agriculture: Because worldwide fisheries are already being harvested well beyond the maximum sustainable yield, we will integrate lessons on sustainable seafood, aquaponics, and aquaculture into our agriscience program to promote responsible resource management.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Enable students to contribute to SDGs, document their achievements through sustainability metrics, and gain recognition through certifications from the Blue Community Consortium, Ocean Guardian Schools, and One Planet Living Framework.

Inclusive Curriculum: Develop an integrated curriculum model that accommodates advanced content for gifted students, incorporates a process-product dimension, and explores concepts/issues related to sustainability and cultural heritage.

PROJECT IMPACT:

By undertaking this multifaceted educational initiative, we aim to elevate the Wilson Middle School Agriscience program to new heights. The project will foster cross-curricular collaboration, transcending disciplines such as agriculture, earth science, life science, mathematics, and cultural heritage. Moreover, our students will emerge as stewards of the environment, equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to address real-world environmental challenges.

In the words of Gloria Jahoda from "River of the Golden Ibis," our project seeks to revive the ecological splendor of our neighborhood's historical oyster gardens, ensuring a resilient future for the bay and its inhabitants. This is the cultural heritage of historic Spanishtown Creek, where oysters were encountered in abundance at low tide.

Tampa Bay Watch

Tampa Bay Watch visited our school and taught our students how important oysters are in filtering large amounts of water in the Tampa Bay area and around the world. They also taught us how to construct Vertical Oyster Gardens. This was fun and inspired us to engage our campus community even further by providing students who live on the water with their very own vertical oyster garden.

Our students also participated in an "Estuary Edventure" with Tampa Bay Watch where we explored a Florida estuary aboard a boat. We observed various sea creatures and we even saw different coastal birds and learned about their habitats and reasons for living in the area. Our class identified red, black and white mangroves and learned to distinguish them. Back at the Marine Discovery Center we learned about native and invasive species and even dissected lionfish to better understand their anatomy. We learned that lionfish are invasive species introduced into the environment.

Champions In Actions

The Everglades Foundation

The Everglades Foundation encourages schools to raise awareness and take action for the environment. We accepted their challenge of becoming a Champions in Action school where we had to identify some environmental issues within the community and follow a series of steps to address them. This led to the creation of this website, interacting with restaurants that serve oysters and the idea of creating our own Vertical Oyster Garden Adoption Station. This project united our classroom, teaching us creativity, problem-solving, and leadership skills essential for civic engagement.

Mr. C took us on a shoreline cleanup so that we could see what a shoreline restoration project looked like. We saw both black and red mangroves in the area near the mouth of the Hillsborough River. Soon, some of our students will be exploring the Upper Everglades at Disney Wilderness Preserve and taking the Behind the Seeds tour at EPCOT's Living With the Land Experience.

For more about Champions in Action, click the Champions in Action button and to see what we accomplished in our CIA project check out the link to Everglades Literacy and the link to Opulent Oysters.

TBEP Bay Mini-Grant

Through educational resources and supplies provided by the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, our students were able to learn how to improve water quality with oysters, and how combined with native aquatic grasses and mangroves we can restore entire shorelines. We were able to purchase restoration supplies, student lab & safety equipment and gather awareness materials to implement our own estuary project entitled "Enhancing Environmental Education Through Restoration." With the grant TBEP provided and some kind donations from the Reef Ball Foundation we now have molds and an entire reef-ball toolkit to build our own Oyster Reef Orbs. We also participated in a Shoreline Restoration project with an organization called Ecosphere. Several leaders from the community have agreed to assist with our estuary project and we are really excited about the opportunity to engage with marine organisms and witness firsthand how oysters colonize on our vertical oyster gardens and oyster reef orbs. Our goal is to develop an oyster reef within walking distance from our school... How cool is that!!!

You can get your very own Tarpon Tag for a license plate. Click the button to learn more:

Tag Up Today

SWFWMD - Splash Grant

The Southwest Florida Water Management District afforded us the ability to design our own Aquaponic System which is a closed loop food production system that is considerate of the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. This sustainable model showcases how aquaculture and aquaponics can be used to cultivate fish for consumption and simultaneously raise native Florida fish. This system can also grow vegetable crops for consumption and native aquatic plants for ecosystem restoration. Our oyster project also demonstrated how an aquaculture species like oysters can be a sustainable food source and at the same time be used to improve water quality in the marine environment.

SWFWMD provided additional funding to enable our students to take an Estuary EdVenture field trip to Tampa Bay Watch in St. Petersburg where our students embarked on an ecotour of a Florida estuary, explored the Marine Discovery Center and conducted a Lionfish Dissection.

We purchased freshwater and saltwater nutrient testing equipment, learned about the Hillsborough River Watershed and pushed our understanding even further about how vital marine organisms are in the water.

Roots and Shoots supported us with supplies for our vertical oyster garden (VOG) pick up location. Using teamwork and a few pieces of lumber, we designed a display board with information about how communities can improve water quality by adopting and deploying vertical oyster gardens. They also helped us with our presentation to teach other students about what we do about the problems.

Learn more about this project here: Oyster Project

Roots and Shoots

American Institute of Chemical Engineers

Mr. C saw online how the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition was using Soil Health Buckets to help students learn about nutrients in the soil and sustainable agriculture. The organization kindly sent us their "Healthy Soils Handbook" a "Soil Quilt" reader and a list of supplies included in the Soil Health Buckets. Through a grant provided from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, we were able to purchase all of the materials suggested to develop our own Soil Health Buckets. It took us a while to gather all of these materials, but each bucket includes tools for soil testing and lessons on nutrients. We also had fun participating in gamified lessons on Journey 2050, a farming game that teaches students about soil nutrient requirements and sustainable agriculture. Students now have a greater awareness of soil health, increased interest in STEM, and a stronger desire for careers in soil health and agriculture.

City of Tampa

The City of Tampa serves as advocates for the Wilson Middle School Estuary Project aimed at oyster recycling and shoreline restoration; this aligns with Tampa's Vision for Sustainability and Resilience. Their support on other projects has been instrumental in cleaning up the Tampa Bay area, and our classroom aims to raise awareness about local water quality issues and engage the community in solutions. As corporate liaisons, the city provided a letter of support to advance our project. We are collaborating to improve water quality in Tampa Bay and explore nature-based solutions for coastal resilience.

Mission, Vision, & Strategy

Consider Supporting our Estuary Program

Mission: Our mission is to restore oyster habitats in Hillsborough Bay, aiming to expand the oyster population, improve water quality, and manage storm surge damage. We seek to spread awareness for local and global environmental issues and involve the community in the restoration process, ultimately ensuring cleaner water in the bay.

Vision:

As a school: We aspire to be problem solvers who positively influence our community and bay, actively participating in the restoration efforts by reestablishing oyster gardens and encouraging others to do the same. We aim to become a role model for other schools, embodying a green, renewable ethos.
As a generation: We envision ourselves as informed agents of change, addressing local environmental issues through inquiry and advocacy, ultimately improving the quality and significance of Hillsborough Bay for future generations.
As environmental citizens: We strive to be stewards of our environment, using oysters as a tool to enhance water quality in Hillsborough Bay. We aim to foster awareness and action, serving as beacons of change, knowledge, and stability.

Strategy Statement: Our strategy involves advocating for improved water quality in Hillsborough Bay by engaging key stakeholders such as the Mayor of Tampa, the Wilson Middle School Principal, local businesses, restaurants, coastal homeowners, the Everglades Foundation, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, Tampa Bay Watch and the Southwest Florida Water Management District. We aim to influence policy and practice changes, including recycling of oyster shells by restaurants, encouraging participation from other schools, implementing rules to enhance water quality, and fostering the establishment of oyster gardens by coastal homeowners. Additionally, we seek grant funding and city-wide support to advance our restoration efforts.

Spanishtown Creek

Cultural Heritage

Spanishtown Creek was Tampa's first fishing village community that existed in what is now the Hyde Park area. A stream by the same name runs through the neighborhood and empties into Hillsborough Bay. The stream is completely covered by concrete today and like the history of the first village remains almost completely unknown to most area residents today. A historical marker on Bay Street commemorates the history.

Learn more...

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