An organization on Long Island called Friends of the Bay wrote : October 20, 2017: Summer saw the inauguration of a pilot oyster gardening program in the village of Laurel Hollow (on Long Island,NY). The program drew enthusiastic support from local residents and was led by Laurel Hollow Village Trustee Jeff Miritello. Volunteers were trained and built oyster floats and performed frequent cleaning and measuring. Volunteers placed nearly 20,000 oysters in bags to overwinter them until next season. The remaining 10,000 oysters were released onto nearby hard bay bottom. The oysters, which averaged 18 mm when obtained from Cornell Cooperative Extension in mid-July, grew to an average size of 60 mm by the middle of October.
Fortunately this program continued this summer for 2018.
Unfortunately, schools are not in session, but some local clubs are. Perhaps schools could be designing new models for the oyster floats or mapping of the oyster beds using drones for STEM involvement during the school year. I am not sure of the species name of oysters we have, but a comparison of data trends from the Maryland/DC area and other States oyster beds would be interesting to follow to relate to other factors (invasive species effect on oysters, water pollution, over harvesting, disease).
Friends of the Bay have been an advocate for the future of our waterways through education and action plans - to include monitoring. They have some educational resources and volunteer options on their website.
http://friendsofthebay.org/