Haul away! During our shipboard programs, students are transformed into captains, marine biologists, and scientists for a day! The Foundation's floating classrooms aboard the tall ship Lady Maryland, Chesapeake buyboat Mildred Belle, skipjack Sigsbee, and the Chesapeake buyboat Half Shell, serve students from a broad variety of backgrounds and range in length from one day expeditions to extended land/sea programs. Extended programs range from overnight to week long experiences and can be tailored to your curriculum. These interdisciplinary programs emphasize applied learning in math, science, language arts, and history and are designed to support MSA outcomes.

Leadership and teamwork are key objectives as students work together to raise and lower sails, trawl for marine life, perform scientific tests, and explore the commerce, natural resources, and ecosystems of the Chesapeake Bay. The day program can be tailored to classroom studies as well as to staff development initiatives for teachers and include experiential learning stations such as:

• Water Quality - Students utilize wet chemistry and Hydrolab equipment to determine important water quality parameters.
• Plankton Studies - Students tow for plankton, prepare slides and examine specimens under a videomicroscope.
• Marine Life - Students help to set and retrieve a trawl net and identify and research and release what they catch.
• The Oyster - Students examine and dissect live oysters while exploring and researching the health and stability of an oyster sanctuary.
• Watershed - Students utilize a working model of the Chesapeake Bay watershed to gain an understanding of issues surrounding the watershed.
• Navigation/Helm - Students take control of the vessel, plot and steer compass courses, and learn basic rules of the road.
• Buoyancy - Students explore the physics of buoyancy, gravity, and displacement by building simple boats and exploring the dynamics of which is most buoyant.