Case study 1: Science and health communication
At the beginning of the 20th century, all of the
oysters in New York Harbour had been eaten, reefs had been dredged or
covered in silt and the water quality was extremely poor (Yozzo et al.
2004). However, by the turn of the 21st century,
environmental laws like the Clean Water Act meant improved water quality
to the extent that oysters could be re-established. The Billion Oyster
Project (BOP; https://billionoysterproject.org/) is a long-term
initiative, run in conjunction with New York City schools, to restore
one billion live oysters to the New York Harbor over a 20-year period.
The premise of BOP is that secondary school students can and should play
a direct, authentic role in restoring their local environment, and that
the practice of teaching and learning is enhanced as the work and study
of keystone species and habit restoration is integrated into curricula
and school-based activities (Janis et al. 2016). To date, 30,000 oysters
have been restored and a new Ecosystem Engineers curriculum has been
developed - covering topics such as oyster anatomy, how oysters’ clean
water, the food web in New York Harbour and oyster reef construction
(https://billionoysterproject.org/). Furthermore, the program has
had significant educational benefits, including for marginalised
students within the community (Birney and McNamara 2018; Caref and
Lawrence 2018).