By. Heather Flanagan, Project Coordinator for Communications for the Billion Oyster Project Curriculum and Community Enterprise   “I picked the wrong day to wear white sneakers,” a student sighed, while holding a tagged oyster shell in one hand and a squirt bottle in the other.  Undaunted by either her sartorial choices or the light rain, she and a classmate continued to rinse off the shells so they could get right to their group’s task – finding out if their “spat-on-shell” juvenile oysters had grown since their last visit in December.  Calipers in hand, the students carefully noted and recorded the length of each juvenile.  “That’s nasty,” one girl said, poking a gloved finger at a mud and algae-covered shell.  The girl in white sneakers came to the oysters’ defense: “No it’s not.  It’s nature!”   These young oyster researchers were not at a beach or an aquaculture farm- they were at Pier 5 of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where their sixth grade class, lead by teachers Rachelle Travis and Judith Alexander-Edwards, had been busy growing oysters in a cage dangling into the East River since 2015.  Their school, Dr. Susan S. McKinney Secondary School for the Arts, is one of 57 … Continue reading Billion Oyster Project Connects Students and Teachers to Harbor Restoration in their Own Backyard