Southeast Region Restoration & Education
The N.C. Coastal Federation works with numerous partners to link coastal habitat restoration with environmental education in the Southeast Region. The federation’s education program engages students and adults in projects to protect water quality and restore important coastal habitats. Our program strives to provide opportunities for individuals to take an active role in the stewardship of our coastal waters and habitats. Learn More.
Current Projects
Coastal Habitats Create Outdoor Classrooms
Student at Dixon High School in Onslow County dissect oysters.
How can learning about our amazing coastal environment compete with all the daily distractions confronting students? Engage some of the best teachers and tools at our disposal: oysters, marsh grasses and seine nets, to name a few. By incorporating oysters in the classroom or a saltmarsh restoration field trip in the curriculum, the federations Southeast Region Student Habitat Education Program continues to build and strengthen the link between students and their coastal environment.
Students from Wilmington’s Eugene H. Ashley and John T. Hoggard high schools and from Onslow County’s Dixon High are using oysters in the classroom and field to enhance their marine and earth sciences, biology and oceanography curricula. Classroom lessons that focus on oyster ecology and biology give students a better understanding of the coastal environment through hands-on learning.
While dissecting oysters, students frequently ask if they can eat theirs or wonder how anyone could eat the slimy bivalve. But they get a unique learning opportunity that teachers can incorporate into their curriculum.
Linking the classroom experience to coastal stewardship and local ecology is a critical component of the program. Students work with federation staff to build and monitor regional oyster reefs. The field work allows student to apply their classroom skills, interact with a variety of professionals and gain the knowledge and drive to become active coastal stewards.
The Oysters in the Classroom initiative is one component of the federation’s Student Habitat Education Program that also includes the Wetland Nurseries Program for middle schools and School Yard Rain Gardens for elementary schools. These outdoor education programs were started in 2008 through the generous support from the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation. This foundation awards grants to nonprofit community agencies, universities and other partners for programs that promote the sciences, health and education.
Since the program’s inception, the federation has worked with over 2,500 students and teachers from Brunswick, New Hanover, Pender and Onslow counties.
Fourth Stormwater Project Planned at Wilmington School
Students at Bradley Creek Elementary
School and their teacher plant a
stormwater wetland at the school.
The fourth stormwater reduction project at Bradley Creek Elementary School in Wilmington will be installed this spring. The large bioretention area will help to collect and treat runoff from the 19-acre school property, which is in the headwaters of Hewletts Creek. Support for the project comes from the: Cape Fear Garden Club, Landfall Foundation, Wal-Mart, N.C. Attorney General’s Environmental Enhancement Grant Program, Wilmington’s Stormwater Services, N.C. Division of Soil and Water Conservation and the EPA's Five Star Grant Program.
The school and the New Hanover Board of Education are working with the N.C. Coastal Federation and numerous partners to entirely eliminate polluted runoff on the school campus. Another goal of this multi-year plan is to demonstrate techniques that can be used to capture and treat stormwater at other schools and public buildings.
The plan includes a number of stormwater reduction projects around the school. Rain gardens, bioretention areas and stormwater wetlands will slow down and soak up the rainwater flowing off the paved areas and roofs from the school, removing bacteria and other pollutants before they reach nearby Hewletts Creek. These areas also provide students with living classrooms to learn about plants, soils, hydrology, pollution and local ecology.
Two rain gardens and two stormwater wetlands were finished last year. The projects are accompanied by classroom and field activities for the entire third grade and include plantings by students and volunteers and educational opportunities for the community.
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