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In a new outdoor classroom over the Indian River Lagoon, students are learning concrete ways to protect the environment around them with oysters.
The program is part of Brevard Zoo’s ‘Restore Our Shores’ initiative, which distributes oysters to volunteer “oyster gardeners” with waterfront property. Students at St. Marks Episcopal Academy in Cocoa Beach hoist up cages filled with baby oysters once every one or two weeks to monitor the growth. Each of the oysters can filter 50 gallons of water each day when they reach full size.
Oysters are “filter feeders,” meaning they feed by pumping water through their gills and feeding on the particles of food they trap. In the process, they suck up contaminants and clean the water.
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Kim McCann, attired in seafaring garb of an earlier era, speaking with the cadence of a shipâs roll, took us into the intricacies of how and why landlocked Indianapolis came to house the Naval Reserve Armory 85 years ago. She spoke of its continuing legacy as a part of Indianapolis Classical Schools, a free charter school, which was honored with the Cook Cup for innovative renovation.
Marking the tenth anniversary of a unique partnership between Storytelling Arts and Indiana Landmarks, McCann stepped onto the Cook Theatre stage at the Indiana Landmarks Indianapolis headquarters and, via Zoom on Feb. 28, transported us across time and spaces from this former home of the Central Avenue United Methodist Church in the Old Northside Neighborhood to the near downtown site of the recently established Riverside High School.