Learning didn’t stop when the SOLs were over for seventh graders at Thomas Hunter Middle School. Instead, science teacher Jerry Ligon planned a full day of activities for them at his home on Milford Haven.

In what is termed a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience, the students rotated among 10 learning stations, participating in such activities as measuring turbidity and oxygen content in the water under the direction of retired science teacher Susan Walton, planting sea grasses with Mike VanLandingham and Bob Waring of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation to help preserve a shoreline, and visiting the aquaculture facility Oyster Seed Holdings on Callis Wharf Road.

Joe Allen, who raises oysters for personal use in aquaculture cages, taught a cage-building class, while Carl Thiel-Goin of the Tidewater Soil and Conservation District taught a rain barrel-building class. The resulting products will be sold and the money used to help develop Thomas Hunter&r...