Conceptualized and organized by New England fishermen, the MIT Sea Grant College Program, and other cooperating organizations, the Adopt-a-Boat program is a collaborative project between the fishing industry and educators. The project's goal is to use commercial fishing boats as a vehicle for teaching the complexities of marine resource utilization, marine ecology, and life as a fisherman to K-12 students. With funding from the Northeast Consortium, we help facilitate the presentation of a balanced picture of commercial fishing, working to build an enlightened citizenry regarding marine resource utilization and its importance to coastal communities.

The Adopt-a-Boat program will implement vessel/classroom partnerships and facilitate their collaborative activities with logistic support, communications, and other state-of-the-art technologies. Our partnerships include teachers from Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and a variety of vessel types from Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Each boat is linked with a partnering classroom often in the same geographic region as the vessel's homeport.

Vessels are compensated for any boat time required to fulfill their partnership obligations. The captain and crew are paid for meetings and shore activities associated with the project. The schools are compensated for direct costs associated with their Adopt-a-Boat participation. Each boat and classroom will be outfitted with the technologies required to meet the specific requirements of their partnership. In some cases this will include tools for electronic data collection and transfer, in others cases, digital cameras will be used to collect images and the Internet will be used for communication. These technologies and their communication costs will be supported by the project. Project communication depends on email and the programs web site, on-shore Internet access is essential for all Adopt-a-Boat classrooms and vessels.

We encourage partnerships that span the range of connectivity from close, day-to-day communication to occasional or short-term focused interactions. The details of each partnership are worked out between the teacher and the vessel captain, with the guidance of the Adopt-a-Boat project staff. Class visits, boat visits, or regular data exchanges may be included, and the proprietary aspect of each fishing operation is always respected. MIT Sea Grant's role is to coordinate the program, matching up boats and schools and providing the appropriate tools to make the partnerships meet their potential.