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| Two Plum Point students examine the inner workings of a horseshoe crab — The Bay Net photos by Sean Rice, see slideshow below |
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| Future hip-boot models from Great Mills HS |
Classes from Great Mills High School and Plum Point Elementary school participated in the 7th annual “raising horseshoe crabs” release event held Thursday at Flag Ponds Nature Park, south of Prince Frederick.
The event was the culmination of this year’s raising horseshoe crabs in the classroom program, sponsored by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
During the day-long event on the beach, student releases their classroom-raised horseshoe crabs into the waters of the Chesapeake and participated in several learning stations, teaching them about aquatic natural resources, including the medical uses horseshoe crab blood, the relationship between the crabs and shorebirds, tagging and anatomy, and how to survey and predict horseshoe crab populations.
In one of the more exciting events of the day, Ms. Huffines class from Great Mills High and Ms. Ridenour’s class from Plum Point collected sea critters using the “seining” method, which entails dragging a large net on the shoreline to capture critters for observation.
Among the critters caught were blue crabs, mud crabs, shrimp, several type of fish, and even and eel, (but not the electric kind, which is not native to the U.S.).
See the slideshow below for more pictures.