History & Future of the Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay offers the Living Classrooms Foundation vessels a grand setting to pursue their educational mission. When aboard, students learn new skills, develop an understanding for their surroundings, and gain a lasting appreciation for the Chesapeake Bay. On board the ships, students will examine the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the Bay. There are many interacting and interlocking parts. Almost everything in and around the Bay is linked.
BEGINNINGS: The Chesapeake Bay was formed ten thousand years ago when melting
glaciers from the last ice age caused the sea level to rise and flood the lower
Susquehanna River Valley. Humans have long realized the value and importance of
this national treasure. Native American Indians lived in harmony with the Bay,
using it primarily as a source of food and transportation. This began to change
when European colonization of the region accelerated the human impact on the Bay,
placing stressful demands on the water and land.
WHAT IS AN ESTUARY? The Chesapeake Bay is the largest and most valuable
estuary in the United States. An estuary is a semi-enclosed body of water where
fresh water from rivers meets and mixes with salt water from the ocean creating
brackish water. Estuaries are highly productive ecosystems. The Chesapeake Bay
offers a variety of plants, animals, and sea life. During your shipboard experience,
you will see Chesapeake Bay life firsthand and test the water’s dissolved oxygen
content, pH, temperature and salinity.
WATERSHED: The Chesapeake Bay is a finely tuned ecosystem that balances
the components of air, land, water, life, and non-living materials. The rivers
that flow into the Bay drain a watershed of 64,000 square miles that includes
parts of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia,
and Washington, D.C. In the watershed of the Chesapeake Bay, each stream or river
funnels rain waters to the estuary from the Appalachian Mountains, the Piedmont
Plateau and the Coastal Plain. This means that even hundreds of miles away, water,
nutrients, and pollutants run-off the land into streams, which flow into rivers
that eventually reach the Bay.
WETLANDS: Often the streams and rivers in the watershed flow through marshlands
or wetlands that are extremely important to the life cycles of Chesapeake Bay
plants and animals. Wetlands play a critical role in helping to filter excess
nutrients and pollutants before they reach the Bay. In addition, they provide
plenty of food and a great hiding place for young fish.
USES: Through the years people have used the Bay for different reasons
including: a water supply, waste disposal, a source of food and jobs, and for
industry, housing, transportation, forestry, agriculture, commerce, and recreation.
The economy of this region thrives thanks to the Bay, yet due to such heavy human
interaction, the health of the Bay and its life suffer.
FUTURE: Citizens of the Bay region (nearly l3 million) must strive to preserve
this natural resource and maintain a healthy ecosystem. With careful management,
the Chesapeake Bay will be saved for the benefit of future generations.