Cuttyhunk gave Old Hammondtown School’s sixth grade class a warm island welcome on Wednesday as the students arrived for a day of exploration.

“Everybody’s helping. It’s so typical that there’s a willingness to leap right in,” said Allie Thurston, a presenter on the  field trip.

For the past several months, Ben Squire’s science classes at OHS have collaborated on lessons with Cuttyhunk Elementary School, a one-room schoolhouse with only two students, siblings Carter and Gwen Lynch. In April, the Lynches and their teacher Michelle Carvalho visited their counterparts in Mattapoisett with the promise that OHS would return the favor before the year was out. The Mattapoisett Land Trust offered to sponsor the trip.

With 85 students prepared to descend on the island, which has 25 or less year-round residents, Carvalho broadcast a message across the island to find volunteers who would share their knowledge of Cuttyhunk with the OHS kids. She quickly got a list of volunteers who could speak on the aquaculture, history, geology and wildlife of the island.

“It’s a really unusual place,” said Nancy Wilder, a Cuttyhunk native. “I love to share it.”

Wilder introduced kids to aquaculture on the island, including oysters and quahogs.

“What makes an oyster taste good is where they’re from,” said Wilder. “They get big on Cuttyhunk water.”

Kids tried their hand at cracking open the shellfish, and a few even got to try them raw.

“Free food!” exclaimed Quinn Davignon as he slurped down a quahog, which he declared was “salty and good” – an apt description of the day.

As the students walked from station to station, they learned about other treasures from the sea through Dale Lynch, who set up his mobile Cuttyhunk Shipwreck Museum. Diving only an eighth of a mile from shore, he has found artifacts from the many ships that have crashed in the harbor, including whalers sailing from Mattapoisett.

“They call this the graveyard of the Atlantic,” said Lynch, who had a 1786 bell, ebony and ship parts on display.

The forces of nature and rocks that broke up many a ship in the harbor were quiet on Thursday at Barges Beach where students heard from David Twichell, a retired research geologist formerly with the U.S. Geological Survey. Twichell spoke on erosion and the formation of the island from glaciers 20,000 years ago.

“This is the part of geology I love – out getting your hands dirty,” said Twichell.

He said the kids might not remember everything he told them about the island, but that the day would leave a positive impression on them.

“If nothing else, I think they’ll all go back and say Cuttyhunk’s a pretty neat place.”

Kids also got a primer on saltmarshes and wetlands from Thurston, an interpretive naturalist who has conducted walks on the island since the ‘70s, and they tried their hand at crabbing with representatives of the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

Moving up from sea level, Chris Walz of Mass Audubon took kids 171 feet high to Lookout Hill where they got a panorama of the island and saw peregrine falcons, two types of hawks and osprey.

“I was looking forward to bird watching,” said student Logan Fernandes, who marveled at seeing “five species in five minutes.”

Sofia Martins was wowed by the view.

“You can see the ocean from everywhere,” she said.

While on Lookout Hill, Shelly Merriam of Cutthunk Historical Society gave students a lesson about the island’s past. She explained how the British Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold brought his ship to the island as he sought land for a settlement, paving the way for the pilgrims and the founding of Jamestown, Virginia.

With a full day of activities, Ellen Flynn, chair of the Mattapoisett Land Trust’s Education Committee, said the mission to get kids outside was successful.

Fellow member Rebecca Knutsen said she enjoyed seeing the students discover the many facets of the Cuttyhunk.

“It was wonderful to watch kids connect what they learned in the classroom and around Mattapoisett with the island,” she said.

By the end of the day, the kids were a little sunburned, a little sweaty, but had thoroughly enjoyed the day. Having a staggering 85 peers on their island was exciting for the Lynch kids too.

“It was a nice change to have a lot of people visit at once,” said Gwen.

She and Carter showed how much they appreciated the visit by giving the OHS students a traditional Cuttyhunk send-off. As the ferry pulled away, the brother and sister jumped off the pier, an act that means they hope their friends will return.