2026 - our 50th year- was full of hatchery tours, shucking, cooking & touch tank biology lessons for all ages! Thank you to all of our collaborators.



Aquaculture Literacy Activity Guide

Click on the image below to download a printable PDF. Activity guide was funded by a NOAA eeBLUE Aquaculture Literacy mini-grant.

 

Tap into our “Remember When” video interviews.

Each short film features founding members of the MV Shellfish Group and discusses the Island’s reverence for shellfish, the challenges we’ve faced in the past, and our future challenge to preserve the Island’s shellfish legacy. These films were produced by Circuit Films and funded by a NOAA eeBLUE Aquaculture Literacy mini-grant.

Three men and cameras with old newspaper clippings on the counter.

MVSG founders sit down to reminisce about the old days. From left - Mike Zoll ( RET. Dukes County Cooperative Extension AGent); Ed Bugbee (RET. Oak Bluffs Shellfish Constable); Rick Karney (RET. Shellfish Biologist and Director of the MV Shellfish Group)

Thank you letters from third graders

Thank you notes from Tisbury school third graders. They were the first group to tour the hughes hatchery in over 20 years.

 
 
 

Extra curricular

The ‘26-’27 school year is here and the WT School Club, BioKids for 1st & 2nd graders is exploring coastal habitat, marine life and the scientific process.

Our 4H club, Seashore Explorers starts a new year with K-2nd grade club members. Last year, explorers went to Tisbury Great Pond, Lagoon Pond, Moshup Beach, Menemsha and Brush Pond to learn about differences in coastal habitat and history. Their culminating project was a map of those outings made out of juvenile bivalve shells. 

The aim of our regular clubs and hatchery tours is to inspire young scientists with simple experiments, expose them to local marine life, and teach them how to be better stewards of our marine environments.

Classroom visits & shoreside tours

MVSG continues to work with schools, libraries, camps, and other organizations. If you are interested in a classroom visit or a fieldtrip to one of our hatcheries, please reach out to our Education Manager.

In 2026, we reached over 860 students Pre K- Grade 12 to host demonstrations and share facts about water quality, shellfish benefits, salt marsh ecosystems, and the world of science.

After a 20 year hiatus, we started hosting school groups at the John T. Hughes Research Station to build shoreside aquariums, peek inside our greenhouse hatchery & walk the Brush Pond Marsh with our Marine Biologists. Each year we are adding new stations like an accessible seating area, open house hatchery tours and science activity stations. 

This year’s clubs and educational activities are being partially funded by a grant from the Slough Farm Foundation to increase accessibility at our industrial hatchery sites. By collaborating with other organizations like the Ag Society, Blue Dot Institute, Felix Neck, IGI, LPA, Penikese Girl’s Science Camp, SailMV, and the Trustee’s The Farm Institute,WT & OB Public Libraries, we are able bring more youth into our spaces to view hatchery operations. For those who cannot come to us, we bring science, touch tanks, shucking, and harvesting lessons off-site. 

Community Foodways

2026 was loaded with collaborative partnerships. MVSG continues to evolve programming centered around the bivalve as a climate-resilient, local and sustainable food source. We work with individuals, other conservation organizations, community members & libraries to teach people how to shuck, how to cook, and how to harvest local shellfish. Set up a lesson with us and learn why we work so hard to “bivalvify” the waters around Martha’s Vineyard.

This work is supported through competitive grant writing and individual donors. In 2026, 403 people learned how to shuck, harvest or handle shellfish. 809 folks visited our hatcheries to learn about shellfish life cycles and 4,063 people were engaged in learning about shellfish.

2024-2025 outreach was supported with funding from NOAA’s eeBLUE Aquaculture Literacy Program with a focus on inspiring locals and visitors to get out onto the ponds, explore to the benefits of aquaculture, and participate in volunteer science opportunities. Occurring on the eve of our 50th year, this grant also enabled MVSG to make a number of documentary-style shorts capturing our impact on and around Martha’s Vineyard.