Education Program
NY/NJ Baykeeper works with school and community groups to share the importance of coastal restoration, stormwater management, and clean water. We also work with students to sample our waterways for microplastics and offer interactive programming in partnership with teachers and students.
Swim Guide
Water quality information is gathered from government agencies or reported by Swim Guide affiliates themselves. In any beach, look at the “Source” section. This will tell you who samples the water at each beach, how often, and what water quality standards apply. The date and time stamps tell you when the sample results were last verified by the Swim Guide affiliate.
Visit the Swim Guide website for the latest water quality information!
Hockey Stick Oyster Gardening
The Oyster Gardening Program (OGP) was initially founded by Baykeeper in 1999 and reinvigorated in 2006, expanding to NYC. However, this vital community program went on hiatus from 2010 to 2020 primarily due to changes in NJDEP’s shellfish regulations for closed waters. Although many of those changes remain in place, our team has continually worked to find innovative ways to engage and educate our community at large – perhaps, the best example being our Hockey Stick Oyster Gardening Program.
This program diverts broken, non-biodegradable hockey sticks from the landfill by repurposing them to construct oyster habitat units. The habitat units are built by volunteers from the Central Regional High School Hockey Team, located in Bayville, NJ, and are constructed out of the carbon fiber shafts from unwanted hockey sticks arranged in 12” x 18” or 20” x 30” rectangles and held together by galvanized cable.
The primary objective of the Hockey Stick Oyster Gardening Program is to provide greater community outreach and an education tool that will increase stewardship and understanding of our Estuary. Volunteer Oyster Gardeners and NY/NJ Baykeeper staff will monitor the Hockey Stick Habitat Units and incorporate them into youth STEM and other various community-based educational programs. In addition, the units will provide NY/NJ Baykeeper with valuable data relating to the health of oysters in the Hudson-Raritan Estuary and inform potential future restoration projects.
Sites of artificial oyster reefs include: Keyport Yacht Club-Keyport Harbor, Liberty State Park -Hudson River, Kearny Point- Newark Bay/Hackensack River, Hoboken Sailing School’s Pier 12 -Hudson River, Bayonne & Elizabeth-Newark Bay and Meadowlands Conservation Area.
To learn more and get involved, contact [email protected]
Plastic Pollution
To prevent plastic pollution from entering our waterways, we must stop it at its source. Our staff works to educate community members and local businesses about NJ’s plastics reduction law. Learn more here: https://www.nynjbaykeeper.org/campaigns/advocacy/preventing-plastics-pollution
Partnership with the Boy Scouts of America
Baykeeper teamed up with the Boy Scouts of America to offer a Sustainability Merit Badge Course on February 25 at Kearny Point. We’ll work with the Boy Scouts to monitor our oyster gardens and discuss biodiversity and water quality indicators.
To date, our Education Program has
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