White Marsh Elementary Students Build Oyster Cages to Help Restore the Chesapeake Bay
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Date: May 10, 2026
Town: Trappe
Summary: Students at White Marsh Elementary in Trappe turned classroom learning into hands-on stewardship by building oyster cages that will help support Chesapeake Bay oyster restoration.
URL: https://www.yourgood.news/stories/white-marsh-elementary-students-build-oyster-cages-to-help-restore-the-chesapeake-bay/

Students at White Marsh Elementary School in Trappe recently took their Chesapeake Bay learning from the classroom to the workbench by building oyster cages that will help support oyster restoration efforts in Maryland waters.
The project was part of a larger oyster education program led by Phillips Wharf Environmental Center, a nonprofit environmental education organization whose mission is to “encourage, educate, and engage people of all ages with Chesapeake Bay stewardship.” Phillips Wharf carries out that mission through programs including its traveling marine science program, the Fishmobile, oyster restoration work, and education programs. (phillipswharf.org)
After learning about oysters and the role they play in the health of the Chesapeake Bay, the White Marsh students chose an action project of their own: building oyster cages.
Those cages are used as part of the Marylanders Grow Oysters program, a free program operated through the Oyster Recovery Partnership that helps residents grow young oysters from their docks before the oysters are later planted on sanctuary reefs. The program provides cages and spat-on-shell, which are baby oysters attached to oyster shell, and participants care for them for about nine months. (Oyster Recovery Partnership)
According to Phillips Wharf Executive Director Kristen Lycett, Ph.D., the students’ work connects directly to real restoration efforts in the Bay. After the oysters spend months growing in cages, they are collected and planted on wild oyster reefs.
Phillips Wharf has long been connected to this kind of local oyster restoration. The organization joined the Marylanders Grow Oysters program in 2011, beginning what became Tilghman Islanders Grow Oysters. Through that program, volunteers host juvenile oysters in cages from their docks, help keep the cages clean, and then return the oysters for planting on wild oyster reefs. (phillipswharf.org)
The importance of oyster restoration goes beyond Chesapeake tradition. Oysters are part of the Bay’s living infrastructure. Oyster reefs provide habitat, support marine life, and help improve water quality. The Oyster Recovery Partnership says its Marylanders Grow Oysters program now includes more than 2,000 volunteers in 35 Bay tributaries. (Oyster Recovery Partnership)
Phillips Wharf also emphasizes classroom-based watershed education. In its Maryland Green Registry profile, the organization says it works with teachers through NOAA’s Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience model, helping students become aware of their local Chesapeake Bay watershed and then choose an action project intended to have a lasting impact on the Bay’s future health.
For the students at White Marsh Elementary, that action project became something practical, local, and hopeful: oyster cages built by their own hands.
Last year, the Marylanders Grow Oysters program planted 3.1 million oysters in the Bay, according to Lycett. Thanks to projects like this one, students are not just learning about restoration. They are becoming part of it.
Learn more about Phillips Wharf Environmental Center and its Chesapeake Bay education and restoration work at phillipswharf.org.


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