Awareness Asea

After a few days at this camp, these kids will be washed away from their Facebook communities, taken from their MySpace worlds and leave their avatars behind to sail away on an adventure to promote environmental awareness. Children who can't commit to Bayshore Discovery's 5-day trips can still participate in the Sailor For a Day Camp.

The innovative camps bring environmental education on board "New Jersey's Tallest Ship," the Schooner A.J. Meerwald.

TreeHugger.com is a huge fan of the program:

"When kids are out sailing on the A.J. Meerwald, and 80-year-old oyster schooner turned education center they seem to get a whole new view of the world. That's probably because the whole experience of sailing itself leaves some kids breathless. As Trinity Carey, an 11-year-old from New Jersey said after what may well have been his first trip aboard a seafaring vessel without a motor puttering along behind, 'It felt pretty awesome, I felt kind of like a pirate,' and then 'You feel like you're floating but flying at the same time.'

"As for the education part, the Bayshore Discovery Project aims to immerse kids in an experience that simply can't be re-created in a classroom. During a day-long camp last week, nine kids charted their course on a nautical map, learning boating terms and hand signals in the process, and working in teams to hoist the canvas sails up the 68-foot mast as well. And after using that knowledge to get themselves around New York Harbor, Jesse Briggs, the ship's captain, took the time to show them how runoff carries pollutants with it from farmland and factories alongside streams that wind up polluting the bay."