WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:06.700 For generations in Southeastern Connecticut, fishing was a way of life for many. 00:00:08.260 --> 00:00:11.420 But for years, the industry has been shrinking. 00:00:11.420 --> 00:00:16.380 The fishers who remain are older now, and many think that fewer young people 00:00:16.380 --> 00:00:21.100 want to depend on a difficult and uncertain way of life. 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:26.140 But these 17- and 18-year-olds are working with fish every day.. 00:00:26.140 --> 00:00:30.840 Not only that, they’re learning a business on top of the standard curriculum 00:00:30.840 --> 00:00:35.360 and making money for their school, and the enthusiasm is through the roof. 00:00:35.360 --> 00:00:36.880 Teacher: Did you get him? 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:38.160 Student: Yeah! 00:00:38.160 --> 00:00:40.500 [All laughing] 00:00:40.500 --> 00:00:43.980 Litvinoff: I never expected kids to be so engaged with aquaculture. 00:00:43.980 --> 00:00:47.860 Every day I'm surprised about what they want to learn, the questions that they ask, 00:00:47.860 --> 00:00:50.540 and their real passion and engagement for this industry. 00:00:53.020 --> 00:00:58.760 Narrator: These students go to Marine Science Magnet High School, in Groton, Connecticut. 00:00:58.760 --> 00:01:05.900 Every day students get fired up as they apply science skills to manage an aquaculture operation. 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:10.440 The commitment I have to this school - I travel almost 45 minutes every day. 00:01:10.440 --> 00:01:15.580 But I also come in on the weekends, and I do work a full-time job in addition to that, 00:01:15.580 --> 00:01:18.580 but I know that if our director of aquaculture were to call me and say, hey, 00:01:18.580 --> 00:01:21.320 we have a problem in the lab, he knows that I would drop whatever I'm doing 00:01:21.320 --> 00:01:23.880 and I would come and help him. 00:01:23.880 --> 00:01:27.600 What I'm thinking is we should get some of that corrugated PVC that we have, 00:01:27.600 --> 00:01:31.380 and we'll just like, tie it all together, and poke holes so we can get adequate flow in the water, 00:01:31.380 --> 00:01:32.480 what do you guys think about that? 00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:33.580 Student: Yeah, sure. 00:01:33.580 --> 00:01:35.700 Student: They'll like having a little more room to live in there, too. 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:41.700 Kwadwo: One of the things that I love the most about this 00:01:41.700 --> 00:01:43.360 is that students take ownership in that lab. 00:01:43.360 --> 00:01:46.380 We're the ones that are maintaining it, we’re the one who are spending the late nights 00:01:46.380 --> 00:01:49.140 here with the teachers, and testing water quality. 00:01:49.160 --> 00:01:51.080 And it really provides us that stake. 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:57.540 Narrator: Besides ownership of the lab, students also get real world business training - 00:01:57.540 --> 00:02:02.240 and both the students and the school reap the reward. 00:02:02.240 --> 00:02:05.220 Litvinoff: Kids always learn about math and they always learn about reading and writing and they go, 00:02:05.220 --> 00:02:07.640 "Why do I have to know how to do this?" 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:12.040 We learn about tank volumes, and water flow, and flow rate, and size of fish, 00:02:12.040 --> 00:02:15.280 and those are all geometric problems that we have to learn on the fly, 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:18.660 and then they start doing it and they go, "Oh my God, I'm doing math!" 00:02:18.660 --> 00:02:21.500 Like, "I never really thought that was going to happen." 00:02:23.220 --> 00:02:28.700 Many of the fish that we grow in the aquaculture lab are food fish - fish that we eat every day. 00:02:28.700 --> 00:02:31.860 All of the students learn every aspect of that business. 00:02:31.870 --> 00:02:33.920 How much do the fish need to grow? 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:35.379 How much does the food cost? 00:02:35.379 --> 00:02:36.569 How long is it going to take? 00:02:36.569 --> 00:02:41.989 And a lot of those fish will actually be harvested in a few months, sold to a local wholesaler, 00:02:41.989 --> 00:02:44.379 and then those fish will end up on somebody's dinner plate. 00:02:44.379 --> 00:02:48.439 All of the money that's made from that, goes right back into the school to buy the next 00:02:48.440 --> 00:02:51.599 batch of fish, next batch of food, next batch of equipment. 00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:59.580 Narrator: There is even a partnership with the Mystic Aquarium to raise profitable aquarium fish. 00:02:59.580 --> 00:03:04.400 Anderson: Marine ornamental fish can be wildly profitable, and much more so than food fish. 00:03:04.409 --> 00:03:08.980 So there's a real opportunity there, and an expressed desire by the marine aquarium industry 00:03:08.980 --> 00:03:12.300 to source aquacultured fish, but there's not enough out there yet. 00:03:12.300 --> 00:03:16.799 So that's what we're working on trying to empower, to provide a sustainable source that takes 00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:21.760 a little bit of fishing pressure off of wild caught fish. 00:03:21.760 --> 00:03:27.880 Narrator: Ever since its founding, Marine Science has ranked in the very top schools in the state. 00:03:27.880 --> 00:03:33.600 And 99 percent of graduates have gone on to a 2- or 4-year university. 00:03:34.980 --> 00:03:39.709 I see aquaculture expanding greatly in the next 20 or 30 years. 00:03:39.709 --> 00:03:44.060 Meaning, there's gonna be a ton of jobs available and opportunities available for students 00:03:44.060 --> 00:03:45.659 and workers of all kinds. 00:03:45.660 --> 00:03:50.580 All my students, they may or may not want to go into aquaculture, and that's okay, 00:03:50.580 --> 00:03:53.420 but every single student that leaves the Marine Science Magnet High School 00:03:53.420 --> 00:03:57.840 is an ambassador and a steward of the ocean, and they promote that message out 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:01.640 to their family, their friends, and everybody they meet. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.740 There are so many things that the ocean gives us, but there's also so many things 00:04:07.749 --> 00:04:09.329 that we take from the ocean. 00:04:09.329 --> 00:04:13.129 So we have to come up with something that will supplement taking fish out of the ocean 00:04:13.129 --> 00:04:14.439 for years to come. 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:16.510 We’ve spent four years learning about it. 00:04:16.510 --> 00:04:21.390 We know the positives; we know the negatives, but we also know the big things that aquaculture can do. 00:04:21.390 --> 00:04:25.220 So, if aquaculture were to become big, I wouldn't be surprised if that was 00:04:25.220 --> 00:04:27.840 a Marine Science student leading that charge.