CSCR’s eelgrass team, consisting of middle school and high school students, and an occasional college intern, has been researching eelgrass, Zostera marina, in Cohasset Outer Harbor since 2013. We interact with professional eelgrass researchers from DEP, EPA, DMF, Mass Bays Estuary Program, and various universities and are known for our immersive snorkeling, underwater photography, the tanks that we set up in 2022-23, and our 2020 use of python and machine learning to create geolocated photo-documentation of eelgrass and the ocean floor, and our general curiosity and enthusiasm.
Eelgrass is one of the best antidotes to climate change so this year we are pursuing grants and expertise to assist us in restoring eelgrass to the underwater sites in Cohasset Harbor Estuary from which it drastically disappeared in 2022.
The first step is to correlate local light and temperature data with the timing of the plants’ flowering and maturing into seeds, to anticipate the correct timing for restoration efforts in the future. We will deploy hobo loggers, ArcGIS, GoPros and snorkelers to observe plants that are developing flowering reproductive shoots and track their phenological development.
We will also examine sites of interest from previous years for changes over time, and look for relationships with seaweeds, epibionts, and other animals, and assess our proposed restoration site in the “AFKEM” (area formerly known as eelgrass meadows).
Mass DEP arial surveyed our area in 2022, and ground-truthing their work with snorkeling and GoPro cameras and ArcGIS is ongoing.
Our students are constantly innovating and if floating plants with roots are found, we may experiment with ways of re-planting them.
CSCR is a member of Massachusetts Seagrass Group, The East Coast Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Network, and a regular participant at EPA Region 1’s Zosterapalooza conference. We are grateful to all of the professional eelgrass researchers and government officials who have enriched our learning experiences over the years.
Contact sbryant@ccscr.org if interested in participating either as a student researcher, guest lecturer or advisor.
Past CSCR Eelgrass & Coastal Ecology Team Research
In 2024, thanks to MIT Sea Grant, we released the student-made documentary, Eden’s Revenant, about our project, premiering it at The Reel in Scituate. We revisited sites of CSCR-documented eelgrass loss, looking for signs of regrowth, and clues to explain the 2022 demise, and did our first experiments with transplanting. Five of our eelgrass students received a Certificate of STREAM to Sanctuary Stewardship from NOAA Stellwagen Bank National Marine Estuary and used their eelgrass studies in their college applications.
In 2023, students completed a Marjot-funded tank experiment regarding Seagrass Wasting Disease and salinity, and won a Taking the Pulse of the Planet award at the regional Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair (MSEF).
Values of eelgrass:
(1) it is an important primary producer in the food chain
(2) it is also a defense against climate change, absorbing greenhouse gases
(3) it provides a habitat for many organisms
(4) it helps lessen the effects of ocean acidification
(5) it helps fight coastal erosion
(6) with its epibionts, it concentrates sediments and microplastics, from the water column