JASON Mission Center Login
Register · Forgot?  
JASON Digital Learning Resources
Info Expand Print Standards Expand Related Expand Share :  Email to a Friend Facebook Twitter Digg

From: Resilient Planet Mission 3: Paradise Lost (pp: 62)
Oysters to the Rescue!

In this activity, students will get a chance to model the effect that filter feeders have on matter that is suspended in water to understand how oysters may affect the health of the Chesapeake Bay.
The JASON Project has thousands of Digital Learning Resources online.
Register in the JASON Mission Center where you will find them all for FREE!


Oysters to the Rescue!

Oyster Piling
Oyster pilings and reef provide substrate and shelter for juvenile oysters and other aquatic organisms.
Sylvia strongly believes the environment is a powerful and self-repairing system.

 Oysters are mollusks that have a soft body protected by a hard, external shell. To feed, oysters spread open the two halves of this shell. Water enters through this gap and moves over the gills. Bits of tiny food and other suspended particles are filtered out of the water. The oyster filters food and spits out waste. In this activity, you will get a chance to model the effect that filter feeders have on matter that is suspended in water. From this, you will understand how oysters may affect the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

Materials
  • Lab 4 Data Sheet
  • polyester filter fiber
  • medium ground coffee
  • tablespoon
  • plastic screening fabric
  • cold tap water
  • 5 clear plastic containers
  • one 250-mL beaker
  • stapler
  • ring and ring stand

Lab Prep
  1. How might the behavior of oysters and other filter feeders have an impact on the water quality of Chesapeake Bay?
  2. Roll a large swatch of plastic screening into a cone. Use a stapler to secure the shape. Place the screen cone into the ring and set the ring stand so that one empty container can fit under the screen cone.
  3. Fill four containers with 2 tablespoons
    of ground coffee and 150-mL of cold tap water. Stir each cup and observe how dark and turbid the water is.
  4. Pinch off a small tuft of filter fiber about the size of a golf ball. Roll the tuft between your palms into a tight ball about the size of a marble. Repeat this step until you have 16 fiber balls. How does the filter fiber ball model an oyster?

Make Observations
  1. Take one of the containers of coffee and stir it for 30 seconds. Pour the contents into the screen cone and catch the remains of the solution into the empty container. Mark the container under the screen cone "Control."
  2. Thoroughly rinse the container that you just poured and the screen cone. Return the screen cone to the ring and place the clean container under the screen cone.
  3. Place one fiber ball into the screen cone. Pour the contents of another coffee-water container over the fiber ball. Mark the container that collected the solution #1.
  4. Repeat steps 2 & 3, but this time add 5 fiber balls and mark the container that collected the solution #5.
  5. Repeat steps 2 & 3 with the last container. This time add 10 fiber balls and mark the container that collected the solution #10.
  6. Wait about 1 minute and observe carefully all 4 containers with solutions. How turbid is the water? How much coffee remains in the containers?
  7. Create a scale to quantify the amount of suspended particles left in each container and the gradient of turbidity of the water. Draw a conclusion about how the number of fiber filter balls affects filtration.
  8. Using your data and what you learned about filter feeders, apply your conclusion to how oysters affect the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay.
Journal Question

Journal Question
Compare and contrast the filtering done by riparian forests to oysters and other filter feeders. How are they similar and how do they differ? Explain.
©Copyright 2007-2012 The JASON Project
Terms of Use • Contact Us • Help • Credits • Link to Us

 Find us on Facebook    Follow us on Twitter