The Fellows ’19 and ’21 on a quintessential Chesapeake Bay adventure.

We brought our Chesapeake Bay Fellows to the Delaware and Hudson Rivers to examine the aftermath of centuries of settlement, development, and industrialization. The central theme to our experience was, “Is this river swimmable and fishable.” Through water testing and biotic sampling we discovered that these rivers are, indeed, better than people think. In fact, during the time we were there, both rivers were (technically) swimmable and fishable.

The Fellows ’21 joined the Chesapeake Bay Fellows Program officially last week when they joined an all-Fellows retreat from Jan. 25-27, 2018. After a leadership / design challenge at school, we set out for First Landing State Park to assess water quality in the Lynnhaven River (it’s good!). We then took a tour of the Brock Environmental Center at Pleasure House Point, a community / educational center for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The building is one of the greenest on earth. It produces a surplus of electricity, consumes zero water, and creates no waste. And, by the way, it is comfortable and enjoys a breath-taking view of the Lynnhaven River. We also spent a day on the Eastern Shore of Virginia spending a few hours at Cherrystone Aqua Farms and the Barrier Island Center. The Fellows learned how oysters and clams are farmed, an undertaking that currently sustains 200 workers and produces millions of succulent bivalves for our palates. The Barrier Island Center houses thousands of artifacts from the once populated barrier islands of Virginia’s east coast. The residents were forced to evacuate the islands after they were swept by a series fierce hurricanes in the middle of the 20th century.

Chesapeake 16 from Chris Nelson on Vimeo.

CBF Summer Adventure 2015 from Norfolk Academy on Vimeo.

Expedition 2015 from Norfolk Academy on Vimeo.

Two cohorts of Fellows, ’15 and ’18, in our fourth Chesapeake Bay Adventure.

Written by Alana Davitt and illustrated by Ellie Randolph, this children’s book reveals the plight of Indigo, a mermaid who has just awakened from a long sleep to discover her beloved Chesapeake Bay home is not the way she remembered it.

Christopher Hornbuckle’s documentary on the Chesapeake Bay Fellows Program