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).