1994-050 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

A small 4-H clam growout demonstration project involving fifteen middle and high school students from Indian River county has been started during January 1994 with the cooperation of Frank Lawlor of Florida Sea Grant, and Sembler Fish Inc. The use of a boat, seed clams and a small portion of lease has been donated by Sembler Fish Inc. This limited scale 4-H program will be used to pilot the Sebastian River Mariculture Project (SRMP). The first steps toward acquisition of submerged lands lease have already been taken in the hope that lease agreement will be secured before the start of the 1994-95 school year. The site will be surveyed with GPS. Seventh and eighth vocational agriculture students at Sebastian River Middle School will begin construction of soft -tray culture bags and nets in August of 1994. Seed clams (6mm) will be locally purchased and students will then seed their soft -trays and nets and will place them on the lease with the help of teachers and local clam mariculture operators. A second plant of seed clam will be started four months after the first. This process will be repeated by students entering the program in subsequent years. One group of twenty-four sixth grade students will be taken out for a day long field trip each month until the entire sixth grade class has been exposed to the program. Seventh grade agriculture students will be taken to the lease one a month. Eighth grade agriculture students will visit the lease twice a month. A total of at least 48 eighth graders, 96 seventh graders and the entire sixth grade class ( over 200 students ) will be serviced by this program. Among this group will come FFA members who will be involved in this program as an after school project. The lease site will be monitored weekly by the agriculture students (approximately 24 students) with their vocational agriculture and science/ecology teachers. General routine maintenance will include flipping the bags over and scrubbing them, along with rearranging them evenly in the bag and scrubbing the nets over the bottom planted clams. Ecological monitoring ( to include coliform counts, water tempgrature, pH dissolved oxygen, bottom sampling and seagrass studies) will also be done on every visit to the site. The two instructors will be Coast Guard and first aid trained and will handle the boats used to transport students to the lease. One of the two instructors will be designated the project safety officer and will provide water safety instruction for all students enrolled. All cooperators doing routine monitoring and cleaning of the bags will be 3