Awesome Chesapeake

David Owen Bell is a ship captain with a background in oceanographic research, marine education, and sail training with young people. Capt. Bell is an avid writer and consultant who enjoys visiting schools to share his enthusiasm for writing and the Chesapeake Bay. His titles include Awesome Chesapeake, Chesapeake Bay Walk, and Dockmanship. As an outdoor education teacher, he has taken school groups out on the bay to experience how an estuary works. As a licensed Master Mariner, Capt. Bell has captained tugboats, sailing ships, excursion boats, and research vessels. He has extensively traveled from Canada to South America and from the Galápagos Islands to the Aegean Sea. An artist and longtime illustrator of children’s books, Marcy Dunn Ramsey is a graduate of Emmanuel College, where she received a BA degree. She lives with her family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Ramsey has been painting and drawing all her life, and since beginning her illustration career in 1988, has produced more than 50 books, including Awesome Chesapeake, Counties of Central Maryland, Counties of Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore, Counties of Northern Maryland, Counties of Southern Maryland, It’s Up to You, Griffin!, Leonard Calvert and the Maryland Adventure, Oyster Moon, Rosie’s Posies, Santa Claws: The Christmas Crab, Secret of Belle Meadow, Suppose, The World Turned Upside Down, Osprey Adventure, and Beetle Boddiker. Ramsey’s long experience with children has helped her keep in tune with their likes and dislikes. Her greatest efforts are directed at communicating a sense of humor, excitement, and spontaneity in her work that encourages children to continue their discovery of the magic of reading.

The Birth of the Bay

7

A Web of Life

10

People and the Chesapeake Bay

16

Life around the Chesapeake Bay

20

Life along the Shore

21

Life in the Water

27

Where do you live?

40

Citizen Science guide

46

Fun-dex

58

Learning More

61

Index

62