Alternative break students pose after potting approximately 4,000 trees intended to act as a buffer to Chesapeake Bay pollutants
Image Credit: Julia Keane
While many University of Maryland spring breakers were vacationing in hot sunshine and warm ocean waters, 13 students, five from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, camped along the Phillip Merrill Environmental Center’s private Annapolis beach sleeping in tents, cooking on camp stoves, and doing their part to save the Chesapeake Bay.
The trip was organized by the university’s Alternative Breaks program, a program which provides selected applicants with the opportunity to travel to varying parts of the world in the spring, fall, and summer. Two student Alternative Break Experience leaders planned the trip, hosted by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation from March 14-21, with help from David Tana, Maryland Outreach Coordinator and UMD alum.
Students documented their daily experiences on a group blog.
“The students who went on this trip made a conscious effort to give up their traditional spring breaks and instead volunteer. The AB program is substance-free and requires students to work hard, but the students chose to participate to do something meaningful over their break,” said trip advisor April Brohawn, Assistant to the Dean for Recruitment in the College of AGNR. “I admire the students for making this choice.”
Trip attendees worked with the Bay Foundation’s restoration team, jumpstarting the foundation’s March-June restoration season. Specifically, students spent several days at Clagett Farm in Upper Marlboro potting 4,000 trees that will create forested buffers (doubling the Bay Foundation’s weekly goal), worked a day with the Oyster Restoration team to build Reef Balls (manmade “plated” reefs on which old oyster shells are arranged to spur the growth of new oysters) and visited two other farms to check on the progress of recently-planted trees protected by shelters for their first five years after being planted. The team cleaned up around a shelter in Carroll County, and then took down a shelter in Anne Arundel County -- one that had been previously put together by past Alternative Breakers.
“I know how important the Chesapeake Bay is, but I honestly did not feel I knew too much about the current state it is in, so I wanted to learn about the biggest issues the Bay is facing and how we can help restore it,” junior Animal Science major, Ashlynn Stack, said. “It was more physical labor than I expected which I really enjoyed because it really felt like we were making a difference.
“The most important thing I learned was that the Bay is affected by such a wide array of things and also affects a large area of land, which people take for granted,” said Alternative Break co-leader Julia Keane, a sophomore Environmental Science and Policy major with a concentration in marine and coastal management. “I think people should learn how they affect the Bay locally, what they can do about the pollution in their area, and different ways they can be involved in restoring the Bay.”
Another Alternative Break trip to the Chesapeake Bay will be taking place next spring. The application period opens in October.
“The entire trip I was applying what I learned in class to real issues and meeting people affected by these issues every day,” Keane reflected. “It was an eye-opening experience to meet the farmers and the fishermen that have to make a living off of this ecosystem that is barely recovering. This made it even more meaningful.”
