The Science Barge

In the middle of June we went along to the Science Barge - moored in the Hudson River at Yonkers. A friend and I had organised the trip for a large group of Home schoolers. I was anxious lest it prove to be a lemmon of an activity but I could not have been happier with the outcome. The children were very well behaved and the staff were impressed and happy with our group...phew. Every one learned alot and enjoyed the chance to see the Barge up close, have a tour and learn about the sorts of things they are doing to promote energy neutral, sustainable growing of food.

They have a green house taking up about a third of the barge, they grow vegetables, compost with worms and use crawfish and fish to purify the water - amoung a couple of other things but only the children remember all of that and they have already gone to bed tonight.

The plants growing in the green house are very healthy. They grow tomatoes, peppers and melons. The melons are hanging vertically as are the tomatoes - great space saver.






We had a group of 35 children and about 12 adults. Here the children are listening to a presentation about usable soil and fresh water on the planet. The science barge do make some soil, they compost with worms. But their plants are growing in a rock based substrata and fed with a compost tea (made from the worm compost) rather than in the soil.


Most of the energy used on the barge is produced by their solare panels. The fan and the automatic roof vents in the green house are powered this way.


They use a couple of means to filter their water and when it is all done and can't be used for growing the plants any longer, it is placed here in this water garden, used one more time for these thriving plants.


Wind generation - on the roof.


Children planted a basil plant in a hydropinic substrata...they know more about it than I do...in fact I spent so much time meeting people and chatting to those who I ahd not seen for a while, the children had to fill me in on a lot of stuff. Thank goodness they were paying attention.