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 4th and 5th grade initiative. By educating entire grade levels, together we are engaging an entire generation of students as future stewards of Lake Champlain.

4th and 5th 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!