0:00:01.0 John Sheehan: Out in the marshlands of Charleston, South Carolina is where Michael Hodges does a lot of his work.

0:00:07.3 Michael Hodges: 'cause I work for SCDNR, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

0:00:11.5 JS: Michael oversees programs involving restoring marshes and oyster reefs. Projects that are directly environmental conservation, but also crucially include education and bringing in South Carolina communities.

0:00:23.4 MH: The mission of our program has always been to encourage a conservation ethic by providing stewardship activities to our volunteers. And K through 12 education is a big component of that.

0:00:33.8 JS: But Michael had this feeling that the education component dropping into classrooms once or twice, or hosting a field trip wasn't landing like it should.

0:00:43.1 MH: We wanted the education to be a little bit more dialed in. And so talking with a colleague and explaining how I wanted to restructure education, she was like, well, have you thought about going into underrepresented schools? And I was like, man, that sounds great. You know that sounds the right up our alley. And then through the National Fish Habitat Partnership and them wanting to get folks more engaged in recreational fishing, that's also something we've expressed interest in getting youth involved in more recreational fishing.

0:01:08.3 JS: This is Dive In With NOAA Fisheries. I'm John Sheehan. And today, we'll hear about the new pilot project that Michael has been spearheading that combines environmental stewardship, reaching out to underrepresented students in Charleston, and partnerships with members of the recreational fishing community. We'll also hear from one of the project volunteers who considers it her mission in life to connect kids and everyone with the water and their environmental heritage.

0:01:37.4 Tia Clark: I want to help as many people as possible to have the experience that I have next to the water, which has been healing and life changing.

0:01:41.8 JS: The project involves many, many partners, but is supported by NOAA Fisheries, office of Habitat Conservation and the Office of Recreational Fisheries in conjunction with the National Fish Habitat Partnership or NFHP. And it's funded specifically to engage recreational communities in local habitat conservation. So let's back up a second and explain a little more about how this project works, the students who are involved and how it's been going.

0:02:10.4 MH: So we are in year two, we had a very successful first year. We only focused on one school last year, which was our K3 through fifth grade, A school last year, a small Charleston County Public School on Wadmalaw Island called Edith L. Frierson. And we were there every other week implementing education lessons, implementing skill-based learning. And then we had our field days. You know, we did marsh restoration, we did oyster restoration, we did scavenger hunts in the marsh. And then this year two, we are continuing working with Edith L. Frierson. But we incorporated a high school, which is in downtown Charleston called Burke High School. We're also working with a group called AMI Beaufort, which is a transformational educational institution. It is court appointed and it's a way to teach these students that there's skills that you can learn that can be applied to the real world and hopefully changing their path.

0:03:06.5 MH: And so it's going great. You know, we're already thinking about the next round in the process of working on a proposal. Actually, once I get off of this interview here for our next phase of this grant and expanding this grant and incorporating a homeschool group and alternative learning institutions, that's what we wanna focus on. Not just the stereotypical K through 12 because there's so much more that can be done with other students. So yeah, things are going great. Gearing up for field season with recreational crabbing, recreational fishing. So yeah, it's go time but it's good. Staff that are working on this project love it. The partners that are involved are really enjoying it. And then most importantly the students are enjoying it.

0:03:47.6 JS: Wow, that's incredibly ambitious.

0:03:50.3 MH: It is. It really is. And I have the tendency to want to do a lot with a little because we could say, oh, we'll just focus on one school and then we could be, well our plan is the next phase. We'll focus on a different school. But we've got more staff than we've ever had as a program now. And so we've got people that can allocate and dedicate enough time. And then incorporating partners into it which we'll get to later is also key because we're not doing it all ourselves.

0:04:20.9 JS: And so let's talk about some of these activities. What are the students doing? What are they participating in?

0:04:23.4 MH: Sure. So oyster reef deployment or constructing oyster reefs. That is our bread and butter. We've been doing that. That's what started our program back in 2000. And we have that really dialed in. So we were working with a partner down in Florida who provided 250 crab pots that we are using as the oystery substrate, which is beneficial 'cause they're a little bit lighter, particularly for like the fourth and fifth grade students. So we build those, we deploy those in the intertidal area here in South Carolina. The next thing we're doing is marsh grass planting. So we bought a greenhouse for the elementary school where they're growing marsh grass from seed. It's part of a partnership we have with South Carolina Seed Grant called the From Seeds to Shoreline program to where they learn about all phases of marsh restoration from seed collection to planting plants in the sediment out in the field.

0:05:13.2 MH: And we did two days of planting last year with elementary school. This year, we constructed a greenhouse with AMI, which is a new method of greenhouse construction. Usually we buy one from the store with that. They have a construction program built into their curriculum. And so why not get them to build their own greenhouse and learn that construction trade and then teach them about plant propagation and how you can make a career out of growing marsh plants and doing shoreline restoration because that's the thing that the private sector's getting more into and incorporating, trying to incorporate some job training. We're also doing fishing clinics in the school. So teaching the students how to run real fish, teaching them knot tying, basic casting techniques. And then we're doing fishing clinics out in the field.

0:06:00.9 MH: We're also partnering with some local fishing guides and getting the students out on charter fishing trips, giving them an opportunity to go fish with a professional. That's rewarding because usually that professional is gonna put them on fish. We're doing crabbing clinics in the school, teaching them about crabbing, teaching them the techniques and then getting them on the dock. And so by practicing these things in the classroom, getting them out in the field where kids are a lot more excitable outside of the classroom, they've got some kind of baseline on what to expect when you do go out in the field.

0:06:31.1 JS: And it's so specific to the region you're teaching them about the area in which they live and how you maintain these marshlands and traditional fishing techniques. That's amazing.

0:06:44.9 MH: Yeah, it's just a great opportunity to just reconnect people with their environment. People can be a generation removed from their grandparents or even their parents having two fish for sustenance, particularly in some of these communities we're working in. You know, they relied on the land to provide their food and these kids probably aren't relying on the land as much to provide their food. And so showing them what is possible and being able to do that recreationally outside of this program, because that's what we really want to see is more kids going out and doing these activities just outside of this program.

0:07:25.0 JS: And how have you seen the students responding to this?

0:07:29.6 MH: It's been great. At first, students were a little resentful because at the elementary school, they might not have their PE or art class lesson time. And PE and art, That's fun stuff. But then by providing those hands-on engaging opportunities, it really captured the interest of the students and they've been able to build positive relationships and we've been able to build those positive relationships. And so now when we arrive, they're like DNR's here, DNR's here, is here. And there's this excitement with AMI Beaufort. You know, these kids come from all different types of backgrounds with all different types of barriers that can inhibit them from trying new things. And you know, sometimes they might try to act hard or they may act a certain way and that can be intimidating us 'cause we're trying to break through and gain trust and it is hard to gain trust with some students based off of what they've been through in life.

0:08:21.8 MH: But then we're able to teach and work alongside them and teaching through doing is and that hands-on teaching has shown to be successful. So now when they work with them, they know our staff's names. They built this rapport with the participants and the rapport with our staff. And it makes them excited to learn about the environment. And multiple kids have expressed interest in pursuing a career in commercial oystering or fin fishing or shrimping or the crabbing industry in just a few sessions with them because they see the possibilities. And with the high school, high school students are high school students. Didn't know if they'd be fully engaged in the program. But now, we feel like all the students are really loving what's being taught to them. They listen. They listen to the partners that are coming in, particularly Tia who you'll also be speaking with because she looks like them. She's African-American. The predominant population of these students we work with are people of color. And you know, all the staff that we work with on the SCORE program are all Caucasian. You know, we don't look like a lot of these students. And so having someone that looks like them can really breakthrough.

0:09:33.4 JS: And this is a great time to bring in Tia Clark, one of the volunteer partners in the program. Tia is a Charleston native and the owner and head crabber of Casual Crabbing with Tia. The business she started a few years ago.

0:09:47.5 TC: Casual Crabbing with Tia is my love letter to my hometown. It's a land-based crabbing experience where I teach folks how to catch blue crabs, how to throw a cast net. We do some fishing as well. I show them the proper ways to pick crabs up because believe it or not, people are just used to picking them up and getting pinched, which is kind of crazy.

0:10:09.5 JS: Tia got involved with this pilot project after meeting Michael a few years ago as a volunteer for one of his department's Habitat restoration programs. And the two of them got to talking.

0:10:21.5 TC: I remember telling him it's crazy that I live here my whole life and and have no relationship with the water. And then my normal crabbing sessions, I started hosting a ton of kids summer programs and schools. And so whenever I have a bunch of group kids in front of me, I always ask who's a Charleston native and who's crab before? And it blew my mind that there were always, there were not many hands for natives, but they were always left for ones that had crab before. And for me, it was just like a head shake because I mean, most of the kids that I work with are like me. They're Gullah-Geechee descent, which blue crabs is just in our blood like we ate... They eat it. You know, if you ask the question how many kids eat blue crabs, the entire room's gonna hold their hands up. But you ask who's actually had the experience of going to catch it? It's just they're few and far between. So when that started happening to me, I almost made it like my mission to try to get as many kids as possible next to the water, get them on the water.

0:11:23.9 JS: Let's talk a little bit about your culture. You said you're Gullah-Geechee. Can you tell us what that is?

0:11:30.9 TC: Yeah, Gullah-Geechee are the West African slaves that were brought to South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida. And they're responsible for most of the rice indigo, cotton, cuisine. Those are my ancestors. And I came up from a very, very large family. My great-grandmother had 18 kids. My grandmother had eight, her closest sister had 13. My family and my roots go deep in Charleston, in downtown Charleston. And I believe that representation is very important with these kids. It's been mind blowing what has happened. As part of the grant, they wanted me to just come and talk at the school. So I put together like this really short like two, three minute thing of like pictures and what we do on the dock and just gave him a brief rundown of who I was. And then I left that assembly to go view the location that we were gonna potentially be crabbing with them at.

0:12:25.9 TC: I got a message from one of the women that were still at the school and she was like, Tia, you will never believe this. She said, multiple of these kids are drawing pictures of you standing at the water with them in crabs. I didn't even talk to those kids for five minutes. And I feel like they really even if somebody's telling them not to go, they can actually see themselves there because I'm sitting there in front of them telling them that and really kind of encouraging them. And I believe that the representation side is important. You know, a lot of people think that the only way you're gonna educate these kids is to get them in a classroom. They gotta be in the classroom. I am not against classrooms, but one thing that I know about myself now from what I do for a living is my brain processes things differently outside of a classroom.

0:13:09.0 TC: Yesterday, I had an experience with a family of four. It was a mom, dad, son and daughter, and it was a really large group, so they were mixed in with other people. And I just picked one kid out of the group. I said, come over here and help me pick this crab up. And this kid was very nervous and he came over and he had his hands down on the crab and he was trying to pick it up and he just kept taking his hands back and taking it back and he couldn't do it. But after that, I let the group walk off and I looked back at that kid and I said, Hey, listen, you got this. I let the rest of the group go away. I told one of the other dock hands to take the group away and I stayed back with this kid and I was like, all right, this is it. You got all the time in the world, I'm gonna make sure that you do this.

0:13:57.4 TC: That kid picked that crab up, it took him a few minutes, but he picked it up. And to watch his face and watch his demeanor, watch the way that he kind of just like relaxed was something that I wish that I could bottle up. Like it's just really powerful to see that. At the end of the experience, the father from that group came over to me and he said, my son has a huge phobia of all animals. I have had him in therapy for a year and a half. And that man looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, this is the best therapy my son has ever received. I didn't know any of that. I don't know those people. You know what I mean? It's like there is something that happens out there next to that water that is not even just about education. It'll move you. Like, I'm still moved by that. I love that for that kid.

0:14:49.6 JS: And this brings us back to something Tia describes a lot as her mission, to help others connect with the water and their environment. Something that, as Tia mentioned, took her 37 years to discover in herself. Hers is one of those before and after stories, she had spent a long time dealing with health issues and finding her direction after college. And one day at a family wedding, Tia's cousin suggested she come out crabbing with him. And it fundamentally changed her entire life.

0:15:19.0 TC: When he took me to that waterman, it was something. Like, I didn't know what to expect, but I thought I knew everything about Charleston. And in a matter of hours, I felt like somebody had me by my ankles and they were holding me upside down, shaking me blue crabs, shrimp, fish, all in two hours coming out of the water. And he's like, all right, that's yours. You can take it home. And I'm like, wait, what? Like, we just caught this and I get to take this home and cook this right now. Like, and I felt like, what is wrong with me? That's what I felt like because I was like, how could I not know this? After my cousin did that, he gave me the seven foot cast net, taught me how to throw it, and told me after that day he gave me crab baskets, a cast net and a fishing pole so I could go anytime I wanted. And so I went every single day. I really just lost myself in it. And and that's all I wanted to do.

0:16:15.1 JS: And it sounds like such a sort of intersection of it's culture and tradition, it's also recreation time, it's fun on the water and it sounds not to be trite, but it sounds a little spiritual too. It sounds like a sort of a deep feeling and it's so nice that you're bringing in students. 'cause now you're combining that with education and you're teaching them about their culture and history and about their literal environment. It's a great project.

0:16:43.8 TC: Thank you. I love it. I feel like for the first time I'm doing it, I feel like I know this is why I'm here. You know what I mean? I feel like this is my purpose. Like I really have found my purpose and it's to share this with as many people as possible. Mike, if you're gonna come to my hometown with me, I'm gonna give you this experience and I'm gonna show you how we used to do it. You know, we even crab the hard way. I make... Anybody can pull up a basket, but I make them put chicken on a string and walk that crab up from the bottom. 'cause that's what you gotta do, you know? And that's when you can see the frustration coming out in people. And...

0:17:16.7 JS: How do you walk them up in the bottom?

0:17:18.0 TC: So the old school way of crabbing is called necking because they used chicken necks back in the day, and they would just tie string around chicken neck and find some weight and tie that and throw it out. Now there's like this triangular clip that has the weight built in. It's a little bougie now, but you put your bait through that, you throw it out and it hits the pluff mud. And then the crab comes along. You can't see it. You can only see it in the shallows most of the way we're doing it. You can't see this happening. So you have this bait sitting in the water and then you go back and grab this line and then you have to slowly start pulling that string as if you're bringing the crab in your bait off the bottom, not dragging it on the bottom.

0:18:00.2 TC: 'cause when you start dragging it, the crab's like, what's going on here? And they just let go. So you have to very methodically grab this string without that crab knowing that you're at the other end of it and start walking that bait about five to six feet off of the bottom until you can kind of see the chicken and then you or your partner take a net and then scoop in the water behind it. So it's like this really kind of sneaky way doing it, but it takes skill. It really does. A lot of people don't have patience. Most people, I just watch... I go, you gotta slow down and they just go faster, faster and faster. Or when they are pulling it slowly, as soon as they suspect that something's there, they're like, oh, I got one. And then they naturally just start speeding up and then the crab lets go and then they get frustrated.

0:18:46.3 S31: So but I make everybody do that. I don't care. I'm like, anybody can pull a basket and hop a crab's in it, but not everybody can have the skill to actually hand line a crab out of the mud and have success doing it. And that's my favorite way to do it. It's a fair way for the crab. It's a fair fight. But you know, I put a ton of baskets out when I have kids. 'cause the kids just like to pull the baskets and there's nothing like seeing one of those blue crabs come up. And it's so pretty.

0:19:13.7 JS: And it's easy to hear a lot of these same themes echoed by Michael wanting to share these experiences and natural resources, if you will, and impart some lessons along the way.

0:19:26.6 MH: And also teach them, you can harvest oyster yourself. Some people don't know that. And part of this programming is bring in commercial fishermen into the classroom to teach them about the resource, to teach them about how they got into the industry, to teach them that you can make a living off of working in fisheries. You can go harvest your own shellfish, you can harvest your own crabs. And by getting somebody in front of them to talk about it, it can really make them realize the possibilities.

0:19:54.2 JS: And among the many goals of the program is to grow the program itself and to take it to more districts and to hopefully more coastal areas.

0:20:05.9 MH: Yeah. And that's what we're trying to build into the next phase. Finding a way to grow it is what we want to do. And so we're working in developing a packet that hopefully teachers can attend a workshop, like a teacher training and use that as continuing education during the summer. And then we can teach them a lot of these lessons that we're developing within these two years. We will be probably, we're like three years away from being able to really scale this project up. So our next phase is hopefully to expanding upon what we've learned and incorporating some new institutions into it.

0:20:35.5 JS: Well, best of luck with it. Michael Hodges, thanks so much for talking to me.

0:20:40.2 MH: Oh, thanks John. I appreciate it. And thank you for your time.

0:20:44.4 JS: And of course also a big thanks to Tia Clark.

0:20:47.3 TC: Thank you. Thank you you so much for having me.

0:20:48.7 JS: Michael Hodges is a wildlife biologist and program manager for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Tia Clark is the owner and head crabber of Casual Crabbing with Tia. This project involves the Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership or SARP, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, oyster Recycling and Enhancement Program or SCORE, and its Seeds to Shore program. It was funded by NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation and Office of Recreational Fisheries in conjunction with the National Fish Habitat Partnership. And in fact, this particular funding opportunity is specifically for projects that engage recreational communities in local habitat conservation, which is pretty unique. You can learn about all of it, including other funding opportunities and cool programs at fisheries.NOAA.gov. I am John Sheehan and this has been Dive In With NOAA Fisheries.