An Organization in the Bronx River Teaches Youth about Community Care through Rowing, Sailing, and Boating
Rocking the Boat, a grant recipient of the Long Island Sound Community Impact Fund (LISCIF) from 2024, received $54,848.00 for their Environmental Science and Youth Development Program. The organization is located in the Bronx River watershed, which spills into the Long Island Sound. Their project mainly addresses LISCIF’s funding priorities, including community-based science projects and public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship. The Long Island Sound Partnership’s CCMP theme that most aligns with the awardee’s activities is Informed and Engaged Public (IEP). An action they targeted was to increase opportunities to involve the public in the monitoring, restoration, and conservation of Long Island Sound and its ecosystems through volunteerism, participatory science, and community-led action (IEP 3-1).
The group started its first program, the Boat Building Program, in 2001. Their mission is to help participants develop pride, purpose, and possibility by learning the unique and lifelong skills behind building and rowing wooden boats, sailing, and restoring the Bronx River. In 2006, the Environmental Youth Program was created because of participant desire to test out boats on the waterway. After learning to build a boat, members inspected river conditions and became interested in learning more about its water quality and plastic pollution. The community program has evolved to focus on projects including restoring wetlands, collecting water quality data, and monitoring wildlife.
Participants of the program are engaged from the beginning to the end of their high school years. The Environmental Youth Program engages youth with hands-on and informal educational activities. Much of the content Rocking the Boat covers is preparing and building the base skills to thrive in any environmental interests the students and apprentices have.
The Environmental Youth Program is set up into two tiers: the student stage and the apprentice stage. Students are recruited through school presentations, word of mouth, and referrals from their middle school program. In the student phase, the participants learn about the topics that they will work on and later take initiative in the apprenticeship. The trust and autonomy given to the apprentices help them to become better stewards of their environment and take ownership of their responsibilities.
There are opportunities for apprentices to become leaders, as is the case for Melvin, the Restoration Team Lead. Melvin (last name redacted for privacy) oversees a myriad of projects, including planning and leading his peers on creating a pollinator garden, building a water lodge, restoring a wetland that was once a mudflat when he was younger, and planting seaweed. It’s amazing how apprentices are entrusted with so much power to find a path for themselves in topics that they aren’t exposed to in their high school curriculum. Through the program, the participants become a supportive cohort. Overall, 28 high schoolers were enrolled during the LISCIF project duration. Over the course of three semesters, participants engaged in 78 hours of science program activities.
Rocking the Boat garnered a large number of people to their program’s events and activities. During one of the Community, Rowing, and Sailing events in 2024, the program brought 1,343 guests to the park. Visitors were guided by the apprentices to be a part of activities, such as learning how to bird and learning how to test the quality of the water. The structure of the apprenticeship is, in a sense, “each one, teach one”. Apprentices are agents of educating each other and reaching out to their community to spread awareness and recognition of the Long Island Sound.
Through the efforts of Rocking the Boat’s informal classes, 96% of the student and apprentice survey responses showed increased care and respect for the Bronx River. Resources such as a program like the Environmental Youth Program fill scholastic structural gaps in a supportive setting. Opportunities for Bronx youth would otherwise be difficult to find, giving them the ability to learn about their environment located right in their backyard. The exposure they are receiving of the Sound is preparing them for fields related to the conservation of estuaries and waterways.
What started as a boat-building class for local Bronx youth has evolved into a multi-faceted program that involves environmental science, community engagement, and personal and professional development. The Environmental Youth program hopes to expand its work into a mentoring program of scientists and apprentices, making it an invaluable opportunity. Restore America’s Estuaries is excited to see how the students and apprentices continue to build lifelong, transferable skills while simultaneously improving the quality and usability of the Long Island Sound.
