Aquatic Ecology Takes Chesapeake Bay Foundation Field Trip

March 30, 2026

Students in Aquatic Ecology (BL 380) went out on the Patapsco River with Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) for their Baltimore Harbor Environmental Education Program. Students sampled the water quality of the harbor and surveyed the invertebrate community living among the oysters in the CBF oyster garden next to Fort Carroll. 

Students found many different organisms living in the oyster reef, including mud crabs, barnacles, mussels, anemones, and bryozoans! They also concluded that the water quality in the harbor was fair that day, as it had high dissolved oxygen levels and low nitrates. However, the water was high in phosphates, likely caused by inputs from leaky Baltimore City sewers. 

This trip connected many ecological concepts covered throughout the semester to our local Inner Harbor and Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.