B.T. Washington's Oyster Day focused on regional crustaceans
Posted: November 10, 2025
Students in Booker T. Washington Middle School's Marine Science Magnet program learned about all things oysters during their annual Oyster Day on November 7.
Sixth graders participated in rotating stations of learning, exploring and working on projects designed to introduce them to information about the bivalves that are a big part of the Chesapeake Bay regional waterway.
Community partners shared knowledge from their areas of expertise and answered students' questions. Stations covered biology and conservation of oysters, building oyster cages, oyster harvesting, waterway law enforcement, and building water filters.
"This all ties back into our marine science," said Daniel Ellis, lead marine science teacher at Booker T. Washington. "For sixth grade, oysters is our focus. And this is a kickoff event to get them interested in oysters. And then later on, in English in the past they've done research projects about oysters."
Ellis was running the oyster cage station, where students were shaping metal and wood into cages that provide habitats for baby oysters to attach onto and grow in the water. The 33 finished cages will be donated for use in an oyster gardening program.
"This gets them interested and also has a service component," Ellis said. "Because we work with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation with these oyster cages."
Representatives from the Virginia Aquarium hosted a station with a slide and video presentation on the anatomy of the oyster, which included an oyster model, and the importance of conservation.
The filter activity connected science, technology, engineering and math to oysters since oysters are filter feeders. It was an engineering design challenge where students were tasked with building a filter to clean sediment-laden water as efficiently as possible using limited time and materials consisting only of cotton balls, sand, rocks, a paper plate and cheese cloth.
Newport News waterman David Moore demonstrated how he collects oysters off of the bottom of the bay, moves them onto his boat, and then cleans and sorts them for sale. Moore detailed the complexities of only keeping oysters of legal size, thoroughly scraping and removing all debris from oysters, and the tag with recorded information that goes with each bag of oysters to document its required catch information.
The Virginia Marine Police, which is the law enforcement arm of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, was a new partner this year. They demonstrated equipment and talked about their role in keeping the waterways clean and safe for wildlife and humans.
"I was excited to get them here," Ellis said.
B.T. Washington's marine science curriculum introduces students to material about oysters in sixth grade, dives deeper into oyster material in seventh grade and concentrates more on oceanography in eighth grade.
"The oysters definitely tie into what we do with marine science," Ellis said.
