Students from Broadneck Senior High School in Anne Arundel County spent a week last summer camping at Wye Island, where their days were packed with such activities as planting marsh grasses and building bird boxes.
While earning a half credit toward graduation, they gained an appreciation for the bay that teacher Pat Neidhardt said "makes them better citizens for the rest of their lives."
The trip and hundreds of similar projects across the state were funded by Marylanders who bought special license plates or gave a little extra at tax time.
Revenue from commemorative bay plates and the state income tax checkoff have paid for more than 1,200 grants for bay projects, totaling $5 million since 1989.
More than 900 organizations have put those dollars to work in projects ranging from planting trees to studying water quality to printing a recycling directory.
Money is distributed by the Chesapeake Bay Trust in the form of grants to schools, science centers and organizations including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The trust expects to award more than 450 grants this year. The average grant is under $5,000, assistant director Rick Leader said, but some large organizations, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, get as much as $30,000.
Mr. Neidhardt called the trust a "phenomenal resource for
teachers" and said the state gets back more than it invests, in the form of labor and matching funds.
Of the 3.5 million vehicles registered in Maryland, 560,000, about 16 percent, bear commemorative Chesapeake Bay plates adorned by the great blue heron. The plates have generated about $5.6 million since their introduction in 1990. Money not yet allocated is held for the future by the trust.
The trust's share of revenue increased from $10 to $12 per set of plates last year, Mr. Leader said.
In the first three months of the program, 100,000 bay plates were sold, Mr. Leader said. Sales leveled off after the first two years, but they have continued at a steady rate. The program is scheduled to continue through June 1996. The trust also disburses half of the money from the state's income tax checkoff. The other half goes to the Department of Natural Resources' nongame and endangered species programs.
The checkoff allows individuals to write in the amount they want to contribute, which can be deducted from their refund or added to their tax payment. Mr. Leader said that up to 18,000 people added to their payments to give in 1993. The average contribution last year was $15.05. Since its introduction in 1989, the checkoff has raised about $1 million each year.
Glenn Therres, supervisor of the DNR's wildlife diversity program, said checkoff funds account for 75 percent to 80 percent of the nongame species program's annual funding and about 30 percent of the endangered species programs' budget. Donations are split between the two programs.