Governors Island Harbor School RULES!!!

The Harbor School seems to me like the NYC salty seafaring equivalent of the Jack Black movie "School of Rock." The inner city students who are studying and working at this hands-on public NYC high-school learn maritime skills such as boat-building, marine biology and aquaculture. They become scuba certified and boat safety certified. They breed fish and they manage a growing oyster farm of 600,000 oysters. Within 20 years they plan to purify all of NYC Harbor with this awesome bi-valve farm they got goin' on!  These juggernaut kids are INVOLVED in their own future and the future of their natural local environment. Are you as impressed as I am? It only gets better. The graduation rate from this high school is a whopping 74% and each student is required to obtain an acceptance letter from a college in order to graduate. Today I had the absolute pleasure of visiting the Harbor School. I spent the day with these wicked amazing and dedicated students, the schools founding father Murray Fisher and a few other interesting fish lovers such as David Isenberg of Woods Hole and NY Times Dot Earth blogger Andy Revkin. For me the Harbor School is an urban utopia.

STAY TUNED FOR A SHORT GTFB VIDEO OF THESE SUPER STUDENTS IN ACTION!

Cesar, Tatiana and I in the aquaculture room.

Baby oysters growing in their tanks.

Students driving a research boat.
The boats are used for work such as the oyster farm and the scuba research.

Algae: They grow their own!