Educational Boat Trips on the Connecticut River Help Young People Connect to Nature
- Ava Gandhi
- Jul 31
- 2 min read
Ahoy! The Connecticut River Conservancy has officially set sail in the state of Connecticut – on the Connecticut River that is.
Rhea Drozdenko, CRC's River Steward in Connecticut, and Ava Gandhi, Environmental Education and Outreach Assistant, have launched a new program this summer to provide educational boat trips for youth groups and students in Connecticut.
Thanks to the Neag Foundation, we were awarded a $20,000 grant to provide this educational opportunity to children in environmental justice areas such as East Hartford and Middletown. Environmental justice areas are communities that are subjected to a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards and/or experience a significantly reduced quality of life relative to surrounding or comparative communities. By providing this opportunity, we are educating youth within these communities about how to take care of the river, assist them in developing a relationship with their local environment, and guiding them into becoming informed environmental decision-makers in the future.Â
So far, Rhea and Ava have worked with 5 organizations and groups including Compass Youth Collaborative, Middletown Public Schools, and Manchester Youth Services Bureau. We partnered with Slipaway River Tours owner Bill Keyt to captain these trips, and we launch out of the Connecticut River Academy in East Hartford, and Wethersfield Cove in Wethersfield. With these locations, the children have a chance to see an array of diverse wildlife and visualize how it interacts with urban settings. The boat trips are not only a chance to sightsee, but the children also get to play River Bingo, write in River Reflection Journals, see an Enviroscape presentation, and learn from informational talks about non-point source pollution and aquatic invasive species.
On our most recent boat trip with Steam Train Inc., we were joined by National Park Service members Jennifer Lapis and Valeria Diaz to share a fishing activity! These boat trips have been an enriching experience for CRC staff and the youth alike; we are looking forward to hosting more boat trips as the summer continues.
