Everybody knows that fish swim in schools. But recently, fish have been sighted swimming in high schools across New England with increasing regularity. And they are not alone. Hard shell clams, eels, and algae are also joining students in laboratories and classrooms from Connecticut to Maine.

Worldwide aquaculture production is expected to triple by the year 2025, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. This is good news for aquaculturists in the United States, who saw their production double from 1984 to 1995. With the decline of the commercial fishing and shellfishing industry, aquaculture is guaranteed to become an increasingly important component of food production. With that growing aquaculture industry comes an increased focus on restoring and conserving our estuaries, salt marshes, and other important coastal resources. Who will lead these efforts into the 21st century? This question is being addressed now in New England states with the implementation of aquaculture programs in high schools across the region.

A Regional Effort

In 1997, the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) identified aquaculture as an important emerging technology that was receiving insufficient attention in the educational systems. Armed with a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Fenna Hanes, NEBHE’s New England Technology Education Partnership director, set out to address this problem. As program director for The New England Aquaculture Educators Network (AQUA), Hanes organized and conducted a two-day workshop in November 1997, at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Mass. More than 75 educators from middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities across New England gathered to discuss various topics, including curriculum development. Clare Lewis, AQUA project coordinator, was pleasantly surprised with the results. "One of our goals was to establish alliances in each state among a middle school, a high school, and a two- or four-year college. When the participants broke up into state break-out meetings, they formed statewide alliances that exceeded our expectations."

One of the alliances initiated at the AQUA workshop is the Rhode Island Aquaculture Educator’s Network (RIAEN). With help from experts like Michael Rice, University of Rhode Island (URI) fisheries, animal and veterinary science associate professor, and David Alves, Rhode Island Sea Grant Extension aquaculture specialist, RIAEN is working on a comprehensive curriculum that will allow students to progress in a seamless aquaculture program from middle school to high school to college. Dale Leavitt, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Sea Grant Extension fisheries and aquaculture specialist, works with AQUA to provide information to RIAEN and similar groups in Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

Participation in the AQUA program gives New England high schools and colleges access to NSF funds for aquaculture laboratory equipment. One such school, Upper Cape Regional Vocational High School in Massachusetts, introduced aquaculture as part of its environmental science program three years ago. With the help of AQUA, the school obtained a new hydroponics system and is now developing its own curriculum. And like many other high school aquaculture programs, Upper Cape Regional is forging close ties with the local community to solve real problems. "Right now, " says teacher Charlie Pires, "we’re raising tilapia and teaching our students about wastewater treatment, which is a big issue on Cape Cod at this time. Next fall, we’re going to start working with the town of Bourne’s shellfish warden on seeding shellfish beds."

NEBHE’s efforts are allowing more high school teachers to discover what Dartmouth High School’s Margaret Brumstead already foundÑthat aquaculture provides a fun and useful teaching tool. "Our school is in an area that produces the second highest shellfish harvest in Massachusetts," says Brumstead. "I thought, ÔWhy don’t we work with a product that is economically important and allows my students to learn science at the same time?’" During the past five years, her students have been exploring shellfish propagation inside the classroom and out in the real world.

Out in the real world is just where Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sea Grant fisheries engineer Cliff Goudey likes to be. Encouraged by improvements in water quality management, Goudey started Aqualab, the first aquaculture facility in Boston Harbor. The research facility serves as a demonstration project for raising finfish, such as cod and red drum, in urban harbors, using recirculating systems. Located in the Boston National Historic Park, Aqualab is frequently visited by school groups and others.

In Down East Maine, offshore salmon pens are a favorite aquaculture field trip for students and teacher workshops. Aquaculture in Maine: a Curriculum Guide for Secondary School Teachers, maps Maine’s aquaculture sites and offers many detailed activities to capture student imaginations. This 150-page aquaculture curriculum was produced by the Aquaculture Education Coalition, with assistance from Maine-New Hampshire Sea Grant, in a project coordinated by Mike Hastings, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center director. Now in its second printing, the curriculum includes activities appropriate for both middle and secondary schools. "Eighty percent of the material in the curriculum is applicable to other states," Hastings says.

Aquaculture education is also being advanced by nontraditional organizations, like the Water Works Group in Westport, Mass. Launched in 1993 by Wayne H. Turner and Robert R. Edgcomb to restore shellfishing in the Westport River, the organization immediately incorporated education and volunteerism into its agenda. More than 5,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade have now participated in this unique initiative, some coming from as far away as New Hampshire. The relationship is mutually beneficial. Students learn about the restoration of the Westport River into a sustainable bay scallop-harvesting area as they actively participate in the work and research of the Bay Scallop Restoration Project. In return, the Water Works Group receives an enthusiastic army of student helpers. According to Karin A. Tammi, Water Works Group vice president of research, student help has been instrumental in the success of the program.

Making Future Leaders

In Connecticut, a model for the development of successful high school aquaculture programs is already in place, due in large part to the efforts of the Connecticut Department of Agriculture and the Connecticut Sea Grant Extension program. Early on, the state legislature identified education as an important component in restoring the state’s shellfishing industry to international prominence. The first step came in 1981, when Connecticut became the first state officially to recognize aquaculture as a form of agriculture and farming, in Public Act 81-269. Two years later, a series of workshops led by Lance Stewart, then a Connecticut Sea Grant Extension specialist, and Roger Lawrence, a consultant for the state Department of Education, led to proposals to build regional vocational aquaculture centers as part of the Regional Vocational Agriculture System. The prospect drew widespread support from state legislators, aquaculture industry officials, educators, and both marine trade and business representatives. In 1986, a revised Connecticut Vocational Agriculture Curriculum was published to include the Aquaculture and Natural Resources Education unit developed with the assistance of Stewart and Timothy Visel, Connecticut Sea Grant Extension educator.

In 1989, the Connecticut legislature approved a bill to designate $7.5 million in state funds for the construction of the nation’s first regional aquaculture school in Bridgeport. The ground breaking for the Bridgeport Regional Vocational Aquaculture School came in 1991. In 1994, approval was granted for a second aquaculture school in New Haven, and three additional sites are now under consideration.

The value of Connecticut’s regional aquaculture centers becomes evident when visiting the schools. The Sound School Regional Vocational Aquaculture Center of New Haven is alive with activity as students hustle to get to their next class. Some students are headed for the wood shop, where they build and maintain boats used for their research in New Haven Harbor. Others are headed for the laboratory, where tanks full of tilapia and angel fish await them. Still others are headed for classrooms to study traditional subjects like English and math.

Amidst this hustle and bustle, Visel, now the Sound School Aquaculture Center’s coordinator, talks about his students and future plans for the school. "We’re not just preparing students to leave high school and enter directly into the state’s workforce," he declares enthusiastically. "We expect most of our students to continue on with their education after graduation. The Sound School is part of a
15-year investment in Connecticut’s future leaders."

Amy Brown and Rebecca Marshall, two of these future leaders, talk about their experiences at the Sound School with obvious pride. "We get to do hands-on work and solve real-life problems as part of our education", says Brown, "and that gives us an advantage over many other students." Both Brown and Marshall are seniors who are heading to college in the fall. Brown plans to continue her studies in marine biology, while Marshall would like to pursue a career in education. Both students feel that the aquaculture program has prepared them well for the future. Their four years of high school education included lessons in seamanship, salt marsh restoration, and boatbuilding, as well as extensive training in aquaculture techniques.

Timothy Mack, president of the Sound School’s Class of ‘98, sees parallels between the farming industry collapse during the "dust bowl" years of the 20s and 30s, and the present day decline of the fish population in U.S. coastal waters. Like other students at the Sound School, Mack sees his education as preparation for assisting in fisheries restoration and resource management to bring the commercial fishing industry out of its current decline.

At the Bridgeport Regional Vocational Aquaculture Center, students have been raising hard shell clams in an upwelling pen that they designed and constructed. The clams’ spawning marked success for a project in which a local shellfishing company challenged the students to design, construct, and test an economically feasible upwelling pen that the company might be able to develop in the future. This project is just one example of the unique partnerships the Bridgeport school is developing with the local community.

In the school’s enormous aquaculture lab tanks, summer flounder, winter flounder, tilapia, trout, eels, algae, and horseshoe crabs abound. The crabs were brought in to help students find a solution to a problem presented to them by a local utility company. Attracted to the utility’s outflow ducts, the crabs congregate and cause clogging. Bridgeport students are investigating this behavior and hope to offer the utility a solution.

John Curtis, director of the Bridgeport facility, talks about the success of his students with a fatherly pride. "Local businesses and industries approach us with specific problems that they have encountered. Our students are immersed in the entire process from problem statement to solution. This approach to education is challenging for both the students and our faculty," he said.

The payoff is real. The local communities are benefitting from the interaction with the school, and, according to Curtis, the students are achieving much higher scores in science and math on standardized tests than their counterparts in surrounding traditional schools.

The Bridgeport school also works closely with national and international research experts in marine science and aquaculture. In 1996, Connecticut Sea Grant sponsored researcher Luming Sun of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Qingdao to instruct the students in Chinese aquaculture techniques for raising bay scallops. Currently, another aquaculture expert from the People’s Republic of China is assisting the school in cultivating eels, a prized commodity in Asian countries. With the Asian eel population severely depleted, fortune seekers in the northeastern United States have been netting juvenile eels and selling them illegally for up to $400 per pound. The eels are then sent overseas and raised in aquaculture pens for future harvesting. If the Bridgeport students are successful, their efforts may reduce the stress on eel populations from illegal fishing and add another valuable aquaculture commodity to the market.

In another project, through a competitive minority scholars initiative, juniors Darrin Wells and Eileen Estrada are working with Charles Yarish, University of Connecticut ecology and evolutionary biology professor. An expert in macroalgae, Yarish is a principal investigator in a regional Sea Grant project, collaborating with industry on the culture of nori, a seaweed used for food and pharmaceuticals. Wells and Estrada, students at the Central Magnet School in Bridgeport as well as the Bridgeport aquaculture school, are assisting Yarish in developing experiments using various media for growing nori. Thus far, the students have found that nori grows better on hard clam shells than the oyster shells currently used by commercial nori growers. Those findings have been shared with the Coastal Plantations Inc. algae farm in Eastport, Maine, which is also interested in developing nori farms in Connecticut. This summer, the students spent a week working at Coastal Plantations, and next year they will mentor two new juniors.

With the decline of the commercial fishing industry, high school aquaculture programs are an investment in the future cultivation of seafood products. The efforts of organizations like the National Sea Grant College Program and the New England Board of Higher Education in developing curricula and techniques for aquaculture educators have been instrumental in the huge successes achieved so far. And one day, tanks of eels, fish, algae, and clams may be as common as desks and chalkboards in high school classrooms throughout the Northeast.