Let the River Run Silver Again!

Let the River Run Silver Again is an environmental conservation success story for students ages 10 to 15 and the teachers, parents, and others who mentor them. It is a source of information and insight for those who want to learn about and benefit from the success of others as well as those who are interested in developing environmental restoration programs in their own watershed. The full-color format presents engaging, action-packed photographs along with maps, graphs, and original art that extends the information presented in multiple directions and dimensions. The greater part of the book follows students from one elementary school in Maryland as they take part, over a period of nine years, in a major regional conservation initiative to restore populations of an important fish, the American shad, to the Chesapeake Bay watershed and to allow the shad to breach numerous dams while migrating to many of their former spawning areas. Numerous private organizations and local, state, and federal agencies contributed to the program - which was indeed successful - but the emphasis in this book is upon the students, their teachers, and their community as they collectively committed to the project, followed through with this commitment, and benefited in myriad ways from the success of the project. The narrative of the students' projects is presented in an energetic style, and at a level, that will both engage and inform other readers of the same age. A short section at the end of the book draws upon the insights offered by the students' story while identifying pathways for students and their mentors to the development and implementation of water, wetland, and watershed restoration projects that could be implemented in other locations and circumstances. The students' experience thus serves as a model and inspiration for student or youth-group conservation projects anywhere.

Sandy Burk is a Marine Biologist (MS, UNC-Wilmington, 1989), science educator, and conservationist. During the past twenty years, she has worked with universities, state and local agencies, and private organizations throughout the middle Atlantic region on aspects of marine biology and the monitoring, conservation, restoration and interpretation of freshwater and marine systems. She presently lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she consults and writes on environmental matters.