ASSATEAGUE STATE PARK, Md.- Oysters will soon have a new home in Ocean Pines' waters. Several groups got together at Assateague State Park on Friday to make that home.

"We're really trying to get kids of various ages out to reconnect with nature," said Maryland Department of Natural Resources Secretary John Griffin.

The day's mission was environmental education by means of creating oyster gardens. Griffin said that oysters are critical to the health of the Eastern Shore's ecosystem, but the region's oyster population continues to suffer due to disease.

However, two youth groups, Coast Kids and Coastal Stewards, came to Assateague to lend a hand and give the baby oysters a home, an oyster garden. First, they mixed the concrete. Next, they dug a hole. The concrete was then added to the hole. Lastly, the shells were added to the hole, but still stuck out of the concrete.

The oyster gardens will set for about 24 hours, then on Saturday afternoon will be taken to Ocean Pines and placed on an oyster reef in the St. Martin River.

Joriee' Dorman, one of the Coastal Stewards youth group members, said this experience has inspired her.

"For me, it's more of the education, getting out, interacting with the kids and teaching them about science, what a clam does, what you know an oyster or mussel, how they affect the bay, how they are important," Dorman said.

DNR said oysters are a keystone species because their filtering action cleans the waterways. Maryland's oyster restoration program has rehabilitated more than 1,200 acres of oyster bars, most now actively managed.