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Kids Count Clams to Spur Community Cleanup

For nearly a year, a group of students at Tremont (Maine) Consolidated School has been involved in a project that incorporates State of Maine Learning Results with state-of-the-art technology tools in an effort to benefit the local community. The kids are counting clams in area clam flats in an attempt to convince state officials to clean up the flats and reopen them to area fishers.

Most students in the school already are very familiar with the fishing industry. The town of Tremont, made up of the four small villages of Bass Harbor, Bernard, Seal Cove, and West Tremont, is located on Maine’s Mount Desert Island, and fishing plays an important role in the area’s economy. The students are well aware of the positive impact that clamming could have on that economy.

Local clam flats have been closed for several years, however, due to OBD (overboard discharge) pollution from the local septic system and the presence of heavy metals in the area. The Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is currently evaluating state shellfish resources in an attempt to determine which areas should be cleaned up and reopened to clamming.

Led by library teacher Tammy Crossman-Turner, and armed with clam hoes, screening boxes, PDAs (personal digital assistants), GPSs (global positioning devices), and digital cameras, the Tremont kids have been counting clams in Bass Harbor, hoping to convince officials that the number of harvestable clams in those flats justify making the area a top priority in the state’s cleanup effort.

Students use a screen box to contain and count clams.

HOW THE PROJECT WORKS

"The idea for this project came from training I had done with the Mount Desert Island Water Quality Coalition (MDIWQC)," Crossman-Turner told Education World. “Because of that training, I knew how to conduct a clam survey; I just needed the manpower to get it done.

“The first thing I did was create a grant proposal and apply for a Tremont School Fund grant. The grant, which has historically funded Tremont School-based projects that go beyond traditional curriculum offerings, is administered through the Maine Community Foundation. After supplying the grant panel with justification for the project, a budget outline, a timeline, and an ‘impact on student learning’ statement, I received $1500 from the Tremont School Fund. I used the money to pay for guest speakers, field trips to prepare for the survey, and such equipment as PDAs, clam hoes, screen box materials, GPSs, rope, and so on.

“Next, I polled the kids to find out who might be interested in participating in this sort of project. We have many families involved in the fishing industry, so I knew there would be at least a handful of kids who would want to participate. When I had a core group of kids, we met and planned how and why we would do the survey. There was some initial training and then we headed into the field.”

Bethany and Ross dig a plot.

That field work, according to Crossman-Turner, is done at low tide. Students find a starting point on shore and use a Magellan GPS device to record the point’s coordinates. Then, using a specified compass bearing, students walk to 10-15 feet from the high tide line. Digging in an area 1 foot by 2 feet, they count and measure every clam they find. Then they move 50-100 feet away and repeat the process -- eventually forming a search grid.

"We use Palm VIIx to input our clam data," said Crossman-Turner. "We record sediment type, any odor, plot number, GPS coordinates, and the number of clams -- in sizes ranging from .25 inch to 3.5 inches -- found per plot."

"In addition to the PDAs and GPSs, we use digital cameras to photograph the survey site and document our work. Each subgroup has assigned roles for its members and one of those roles is ‘tech person,’ responsible for inputting data, tracking GPS coordinates, and taking pictures."

Ross and Dana help Ms. Crossman-Turner input data into a palm.

Students have completed two surveys of Bass Harbor so far -- one last spring and another in the fall. Two more surveys are planned for this spring, as soon as the weather warms up. The hardest part of the field work, according to Crossman-Turner, is scheduling it -- arranging her time to coincide with convenient class release time and the tides. “The best part,” she said, “is seeing the kids so excited about what they are doing and learning. The kids love the mud. They love getting their hands dirty, digging right down in there for those clams.”

The final stage in the project -- after the surveys are completed -- will be to present the findings to the town manager. The data, which is sent to the MDIWQC and forwarded to the DMR, then will be sent to the state “powers that be” for a final decision.

Crossman-Turner is unsure when that decision will be made. “In talking with the DMR, it seems that the wheels turn quite slowly, so it’s possible that the kids who are involved in this project won’t see a cleanup during their school careers at Tremont,” she told Education World. But that doesn’t seem to upset the students. “They know that the work they are doing is important and that it is generating genuine data for the state -- and they enjoy it!”

In fact, according to Crossman-Turner, the most important benefits the kids are getting from this project is “learning that kids can be scientists and discovering that what they learn at school can be real and important.”

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE

Why Are Clam Flats Closed?

Photos courtesy Tammy Crossman-Turner.