Annapolis Maritime Museum Blogs

Bank of America volunteers help Museum kids
become better stewards of the Chesapeake Bay

More than a dozen employees from Bank of America branches all over Anne Arundel County recently volunteered to help staff from the Annapolis Maritime Museum teach eighth graders from Wiley H. Bates Middle School.

Bank of America volunteers Ashley Duval and Tamekia Jones
(in red shirts) help Bates Middle School students used STEM
(science, technology, engineering and math) concepts to build
model buoys as part of NOAA’s “Build-a-Buoy” program.

The hands-on, interactive program called “Bay Stewards” brought all 210 eighth-grade students from Bates Middle to the Museum. Bank of America volunteers led the students through NOAA’s “Build-a-Buoy” class, where they used STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) concepts to build model buoys as a way to learn about NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System (CBIBS). They also conducted water quality tests, which taught them first-hand about the real time water quality data of the CBIBS. Other volunteers helped students understand concepts of storm water management by testing how water runs off or is absorbed by sod, sand and pavement.

Students inspected baby oysters, or “spat”
growing in cages under the museum docks.

After a boat trip aboard the Watermark tour boat, Catherine Marie, the students toured the Museum’s “Oysters on the Half Shell" exhibit and participated in the dissection of an oyster. Then they met Capt. John Van Alstine, a waterman from Shady Side who shared with them his experiences working on the Bay. 

Joinette Smallwood (center) and
Maria Heimer (in red shirt)
help students understand
how storm water run-off impacts
the health of the bay.

The Bay Stewards program is part of the Museum’s “MUDDY FEET” (Maritime Unbounded Damp & Dirty Yucky Fun Environmental Education & Training) initiative, which will serve 2,000 students in and around Annapolis this school year. The program is funded by grants from the Bank of America Foundation, the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, the Chesapeake Bay Trust, the Carol M. Jacobsohn Foundation, the City of Annapolis, the Annapolis Rotary Club, the Annapolis Yacht Club Foundation, museum members, fund-raisers like the Boat Yard Beach Bash and the Annapolis Oyster Roast, and partnerships with Watermark Cruises and the Annapolis Bus Company. For more information, see www.amaritime.org.

Bates eighth-graders got their first water-side
view of their community from the top deck of the
Watermark tour boat, Catherine Marie.

Bank of America volunteers Mike Smith, Will Purdom,
Justin Ridgway, Jose Matos (front row)
with Bates Middle School students. 

Bates students aboard the Catherine Marie

Bank of America volunteers Maria Heimer, Tamekia Jones, Ashley Duval, Joinette Smallwood, Krista Wallach at the museum docks.