Rocking the Boat
Adam Green, Founder & Director
Adam Green is the founder and director of Rocking the Boat, a boat building and environmental education program for students in the southwest Bronx. The program enables students to acquire, practical, academic and social skills while building traditional wooden rowboats of the design used in New York for two centuries. Students learn how to create something beautiful as well as functional. They learn math, craftsmanship and a conceptual understanding of carpentry as well as the organizational skills needed for teamwork. Land and water explorations complement work in the boat shop and develop a deeper awareness of the area’s natural resources. Trips include fishing in New York harbor, living for 48 hours in all seasons aboard the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, and frequent rowing on the Bronx, East and Harlem Rivers with finished boats.
Students gain new perspectives on their power to create positive change in the world as they take actions to celebrate and improve it through environmental action projects. Rocking the Boat launched its first boat, the Amy Watkins, in 1999 at the opening of a riverside park on the Bronx River. In 2001, students conducted public education activities and spoke to lawmakers about the urgent need to clean up the PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) contamination of the Hudson River.