Their first task: identifying what separates the living from the nonliving. With clipboards in hand, students traveled along the landscapes of Central Park, jotting down their observations, and crafted a list of defining characteristics that would ultimately answer the age-old question: "What is Life?" 

Students then applied their understanding of what it means to be alive to investigate the oyster. Oysters, as it turns out, are more than just a culinary delight; they are a keystone species, essential to our marine ecosystems. They weave intricate tapestries of life through their oyster reefs, providing shelter for a multitude of marine organisms. 

While at the East River and Brooklyn Bridge Park, students engaged in a hands-on service learning project. They made observations about the external anatomy of oysters, used calipers to measure their length, determined percentages of mortality, and then conducted various biochemical assays (i.e., pH, dissolved oxygen, salinity, turbidity, nitrates, presence of coliform bacteria, etc.) to assess water quality at each site. Students carefully recorded all of their data and compiled it into a spreadsheet for analysis. Back in the biology classroom, students will work on a project that compares and contrasts the water quality and oyster health at the two sites they visited. Additionally, these data will be shared with two esteemed nonprofit organizations: the Billion Oyster Project and the GLOBE program. These organizations rely on volunteer partnerships to update their databases, help identify ecological trends in water health, and direct future conservation initiatives. Students also learned about the important work that Billion Oyster Project does to restore local oyster populations and keep waterways healthy. Students will earn service learning credit for their outdoor field work and analysis, as they’ve taken on the important role of community scientists by contributing their findings to local and global databases for other researchers to access. This service project not only deepened students’ knowledge of biology and the health of New York City waterways, but also highlighted the impact that service work can have on local community issues. Stay tuned for future updates about their explorations in biology!   

  

Special thanks to Andy Chen, Seth Canales, Colin Otis, and Lillian Redl for chaperoning; Alaina Alvarez and Melissa Soleimani for chaperoning and partnering with the 9th grade biology teachers for the service learning component; Shahar Atary and Santiago Grijalva for logistical support; Flik food services for preparing the bagged lunches; Ann Fraioli, Shinara Sunderlal, and Zeke Phillips of Billion Oyster Project for helping to make all of this year’s visits to the East River and Brooklyn Bridge Park a success. Click here for the full photo gallery.