Dyson College of Arts and Sciences

Chemistry was definitely one of my weaker subjects. at morning I had struggled to vi- sualize the inner workings of a battery. e lesson that day in vessel ops had been bat- teries and energy. Seeing the two twelve volt batteries aboard Indy 7 (the school's launch) made what I had been taught that morn- ing seem a lot more logical. In U.S. History my understanding about the building and workings of canals was strengthened by having to maneuver them while working on vessel op's bridge simulator (J. Floyd, per- sonal communication, July 15, Floyd 2016). Aer graduation, Jessie postponed her entry into Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, to spend the next year earning enough sea time aboard tall ships to qualify for a 100-ton captain's license. One might reasonably conclude that the New York Harbor School is a progressive private institution, sitting comfortably outside the constraints of govern- ment-regulated curricula. In fact, it is a state-approved Career and Technical Education high school specializ- ing in marine trades that is part of the New York City public school system (Janis et al. 2016, p. 3), and lo- cated on Governor's Island in New York Harbor. e students of the Harbor School are as diverse as the New York City school system itself. ey gain admit- tance through a lottery. Some start their day as early as 5 AM, to make the subway connections that eventu- ally drop them at Bowling Green Station, a 5-minute walk to the Governors Island Ferry Terminal. ere, the walls echo with the collective chaos of any group of students waiting for a school bus. But they are waiting for the ferry, the only access to the island. The challenge of connecting to the water e Harbor School's setting infuses its curriculum and the mission of BOP CCERS. From the landward portion of the campus, one can watch tugs, barges, tankers, water taxis, ferries, and the occasional schoo- ner traverse the waters that compose one of the great natural harbors in the world, all on the backdrop of the lower Manhattan skyline. Each of the city's five boroughs touches the reach of the sea—the lower Hudson River estuary, the tidal pathway oddly named the East River, Long Island Sound, the New York Bays, and the ocean itself. e Billion Oyster Project, founded to restore New York Harbor's long-lost oyster populations, is co-located within the Harbor School. A 5-minute ferry ride and three subway stops away is Pace University. New York may be a water city, but its populace at-large feels little connection to the waters that are its defining characteristic. Mark Kurlansky captures this irony well in e Big Oyster: How is it that a people living in the world's greatest port, a city with no neighborhood that is far from a waterfront, a city whose location was chosen because of the sea, where the great cargo ships and tank- ers, mighty little tugs, yachts, and harbor patrol boats glide by, has lost all connection with the sea, almost forgotten that the sea is there? (pp. 83-86) Although coastal areas were key to the development of the cities and towns they embrace on a map (Lundin and Lindén 1993, p. 468), social alien- ation from their community waterways has grown as communities have become more populated (Lundin and Lindén 1993, p. 471). Earlier communities more oriented to the outdoors and indigenous industry have given way to a life more accustomed to the indoors, and apart from the natural world around them, resulting in a prevailing ecological illiteracy (Orr 1992, p. 87). Our educational system does not stand apart from society in this regard. e omission of local ecol- ogy in curricula in effect teaches students that ecologi- cal principles are not relevant to their lives and the life of their communities (Orr 1992, p. 85)—communities that, in fact, would not have been founded were it not for the ecological, economic, and cultural assets of their local ecosystems. New York City is no exception to these limitations. Why oysters? Oysters were once the keystone species of New York Harbor. No longer. Oyster reefs covered more than 220,000 acres of the Harbor and its connected estuar- ies. ey were home to perhaps trillions of individual oysters that filtered water, provided habitat for oth- er species, and attenuated the wave energy that daily pounds the shoreline, sometimes with great severi- ty during coastal storms. Decades of over-harvest- ing, dredging, pollution, and habitat destruction eliminated the oyster from the harbor ecosystem (Cronin 2017). 12

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