During my first few years of teaching grade five in Newport, we would take out students out on a Save the Bay vessel to conduct water tests and trawl the bay. This trip sadly ended because we ran out of funding to support it. It was so disheartening as our students would come alive when the net was pulled in and the creatures put in the troughs to explore. This past year, I attended an after school workshop with Save the Bay to discuss how to connect Save the Bay with local schools. It was a meaningful meeting with great ideas floating around. At the end of the school year, we found out that an anonymous donor was funding our grade five classrooms to return to the bay on the same cruise we did over 20 years ago. Kids don’t really change…their enthusiasm and excitement was a fantastic way to start the school year. Many of them wrote, “my best day ever” or the “best field trip I’ve ever been on” on their thank you postcards. I hope they will carry the memory of that day for years to come… -Melissa Turner
