Pierson Students Celebrate Marine Life

NOTE: Thanks to Special Correspondent Carrie Allen for this article.

Last week, fourth grade students from Pierson Elementary School celebrated the tenth anniversary of Marine Day at the Clinton Beach, part of the extraordinary science curriculum of the Clinton Public Schools.

If you didn’t grow up living near the water, the very idea of being able to walk to the beach from school is nothing short of thrilling. About 140 students began their day on May 30 by taking that walk from Pierson School to the Clinton Beach, with chaperones and bags packed with lunch.

And as if the walk weren’t enough, Clinton teachers and math coaches, and some community volunteers, were waiting for the students on the beach, with special stations they had set up. Teachers and residents had created a series of lessons, each involving far more than one ordinarily experiences in the classroom.

Among the many activities for the students was a predator/prey game, a sandcastle building exercise, fishing nets for the creature collection, an osprey watch and a demonstration of oysters cleaning our harbor.

Morgan High School students and their teachers taught the fourth graders about shoreline birds and flight patterns. Down the beach, one student managed to capture a pair of horseshoe crabs for the animal adaptation lesson.

Community members spoke about the ospreys flying overhead, the oysters living beneath, the new Summer Outside program and the Clinton Green/Blueway Bikepath.

It was a day of shrieks, bright t-shirts, camaraderie, wet feet, touch tanks, working in the sand, well-deserved lunches and lessons learned by the sea. Students, parents, grandparents, residents and teachers all came together to share a morning children who live in the Clinton Public School district are very fortunate to experience.

Among those participating were Morgan School teachers Karen Kaestle, Emily Lisy and their students. Al Walker and Wayne Church of the Shellfish Commission, Pierson teachers Lauren Devin and Melissa McIntyre, math coaches Kate Madura, Heidi Hayes and Maggie Monty, Clinton Land Trust president Mike Houde and BPAC's Carrie Allen.

Marine Science Day was arranged by Dana Skidmore, 2016-17 teacher of the year at Pierson School, who taught this year’s event, pictured here in the stripped aqua and white top.