Teaching environmental stewardship to our youngest citizens is important and opportune time when they are at school. This year, teachers from Crystal River Primary School partnered with Save Crystal River and Duke Energy to create a curriculum guide for other schools that want to teach students of the importance of eelgrass to the local waterways. Do you know a teacher who may be interested in the curriculum? Please share this with them. The curriculum can be found here.

This curriculum breaks down the learning objectives and initiatives per grade level. Each grade level is recommended various books to read out loud to help teach the children about plants and the waterways. The culmination of the curriculum for the fifth grade class is to plant eelgrass in the waterways. This past May, we celebrated the 2^nd Annual Be a Rock Star Event where the fifth graders jumped into Hunter Springs to help plant eelgrass.

Pictured is one of the many eelgrass tanks that can be found in shops around Crystal River, FL.

Eelgrass Farm Materials:

A large part of the educational process is the eelgrass farms. To create a classroom eelgrass farm, the following is needed:

-Rock Star eelgrass

-Tank or Beaker to plant the eelgrass

-River Water

-Sand

-Ruler

-Clear plastic tote

Eelgrass creates dissolved oxygen in the water column. Look for the bubbles coming from the grass in your eelgrass farms. The students will love watching the dissolved oxygen float to the top of the tank.

Additionally there are two recommended videos that the classroom can view. One is the PBS special that describes multiple restoration activities happening in Kings Bay. The other video was completed by Friends with Fins about the construction process of the Kings Bay Restoration Project. Thank you to Duke Energy for partnering with Save Crystal River to create this wonderful Eelgrass School Curriculum.