ECO By Nanette Wiser
The Community Foundation of Tampa Bay awarded Tampa Bay Watch a $25,000 grant to support the Bay Grasses in Classes program (BGIC), to which Duke Energy Foundation also gave a $10,000 grant. Peter A. Clark, president and founder of Tampa Bay Watch, is grateful that both foundations chose to invest in Bay Grasses in Classes, one of the founding programs of Tampa Bay Watch. Over the last 24 years, the program has provided over 385,000 plugs of school-grown wetland grasses and helped restore more than 170 acres of habitat around Tampa Bay.
BGIC allows middle and high school students to grow and maintain native wetland grasses at their school in a Tampa Bay Watch sponsored nursery. Students are responsible for checking salinity, pH, and monitoring the overall health of the plants. When the plants are ready to be transplanted, students harvest their school nursery and work side by side with local restoration practitioners to transplant their nursery-raised grasses at coastal restoration sites throughout Tampa Bay.
BGIC coordinator Paige Lansky sums it up: “Students in the program are given the opportunity to directly improve their community by participating in hands-on restoration across Tampa Bay. Students learn about the significance of coastal ecosystems and become more engaged citizens.”
With the new grants, BGIC can fund public school trips and include alternative student groups (homeschool, school clubs) but until COVID restrictions are lifted, Tampa Bay Watch is creating virtual lesson plans and traveling “trunks” with programmatic educational materials, resources, and lesson plans that can be delivered to schools to replace the originally planned outreach visits.
The Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center on the St. Pete Pier has recently begun to work with small groups (maximum of 25 students), conducting enriching in-depth marine science programs and field trips. Field trip experiences are around 1.5 hours in duration and include admission to the Exhibit Gallery. Program examples include a Pier into Plankton Lab, Invertebrate Investigation, Water Quality Lab, Coastal Plant Communities, Lion Fish Dissection Lab, Marine Food Webs, and Squid Dissections! For more information on small group exPIERiences, visit tbwdiscoverycenter.org, download a reservation form, or contact Audrey Mitchell at amitchell@tampabaywatch.org.
Tampa Bay Watch recently hosted a DIY clean-up in honor of National Estuaries Week and the International Coastal Cleanup with 70 community volunteers walking 49 miles to remove 579 pounds of debris throughout the Tampa Bay region! The items recovered in the greatest quantities were food wrappers, bottle caps, and cigarette butts. Visit TampaBayWatch.org.