Creating Future Stewards of Lake Champlain.

Floating Classrooms engages local students in lake ecology and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education through keelboat sailing and hands-on lessons. Out on Lake Champlain students grow, face challenges, and nurture a relationship with the natural world. Through a combination of standards-based curriculum and experiential learning, Floating Classrooms uses sailing as a medium to meet the needs of local schools and their students.

Vision: Within the next ten years every graduate of Vermont’s largest school district, Burlington School District, will learn and play on Lake Champlain through our 4^th and 5^th grade initiative. By educating entire grade levels, together we are engaging an entire generation of students as future stewards of Lake Champlain.

4^th and 5^th grade initiative: Classrooms participating in this program visit the sailing center three times, once per season. In the early fall and late spring, students sail. The winter lesson provides a bridge between the fall and spring lessons, connecting concepts and instilling confidence and ownership in students.

Other programs: Programs are available for students of all ages. Topics we can accommodate include, but are not limited to: Community Engagement, Teamwork, Local Watershed, Geologic History, Water Quality, Marine Debris, Physics of Sailing, Wind, Weather, and Climate.

Programs are available from late-April to mid-October. Fall programs can sail or paddle. Spring programs are limited to sailing.

All programs align with Next Generation Science and Common Core Standards.

Contact and Applications:

For more information, please contact Education Manager Hannah Walton at (802)864-2499 or hannah@communitysailingcenter.org

If you are interested in volunteering with Floating Classrooms, please see the Volunteer page!