In this episode, Cassie talks with Juliet Fluty, who has been interning with Educational Passages. Juliet is also a student at the University of New England studying Educational Studies and Marine Biology. Over the last couple of months, she has focused on relaunching the Mini Maine miniboat with students in Maine and Ireland. Hear all about the project and learning that has happened so far. For more information about the project, visit educationalpassages.org/boats/minimaine, and more about the trip to Ireland at educationalpassages.org/miniboat-magic-in-ireland/.
To access the special VIDEO version of this podcast, visit https://youtu.be/TkgUT8eFpOo.
Educational Passages is a non-profit organization that seeks to connect people around the world to the ocean and each other through unique global experiences.
In this episode, Cassie talks with Juliet Fluty, who has been interning with Educational Passages. Juliet is also a student at the University of New England studying Educational Studies and Marine Biology. Over the last couple of months, she has focused on relaunching the Mini Maine miniboat with students in Maine and Ireland. Hear all about the project and learning that has happened so far. For more information about the project, visit educationalpassages.org/boats/minimaine, and more about the trip to Ireland at educationalpassages.org/miniboat-magic-in-ireland/.
To access the special VIDEO version of this podcast, visit https://youtu.be/TkgUT8eFpOo.
Educational Passages is a non-profit organization that seeks to connect people around the world to the ocean and each other through unique global experiences.
Welcome to the Educational Passages podcast. Educational Passages is a nonprofit organization that seeks to connect people around the world to the ocean and each other through unique global experiences. I'm your host, Cassie Stymiest. Today I'm sitting down with Juliet Fluty. Juliet has been interning with us at Educational Passages over the last couple of months. She's a student at the University of New England studying educational studies and marine biology. She took on the task of connecting students from Biddeford, Maine, to Ireland with the Mini Maine Mini Boat. So last episode I was chatting with Lisa Swanson and our trip to Ireland had been a dream at that point. Team is the dream, which was actually the title of that podcast episode. How appropriate. Fast forward a month and a half and we went to Ireland.
Juliet:Yeah, we did.
Cassie:And it was absolutely epic, and it has taken us a month to get our bearings back.
Juliet:And it was a trip that, because we did so much in a short period of time, it took us a while to like process the impact that we had over there. So to everyone who's been waiting, we appreciate your patience and we are ready to absolutely just dump out our luggage from Ireland and talk about everything that we did and all the impact and the amazing things that happened while we were there.
Cassie:you're so right, juliet, um, taking that time to really think about what happened I mean 10 days but felt like we were tens of hundreds of kids and people connected, if you really think about it yeah so let's tell some of those stories about what we did. We tried to put it all in a quick little video on social media, but it does not do it justice.
Juliet:Like coming into it from a perspective of like how educational passages is a new program for me and for me, like you know, seeing it from an outsider's perspective of like realizing the impact that your program has on like the whole world Like it sounds a little bit like dramatic, but like just getting into it and seeing, like from the period of time that you've joined till now, seeing how much of a broader impact that this has had on not only communities like in the US, but communities in Ireland, and connecting on not only communities like in the US but communities in Ireland and connecting, you know, globally but also, you know, in Ireland. Connecting people and having that kind of shared passion for, like ocean conservation and education and giving these kids the opportunity is just like it's so cool.
Cassie:It's nice to really step back and see what some of those impacts have been and to hear from some of the students how they took part in the program and how they remember it some of them two, three years later and their reactions and how excited they were about being here because, like that's such a thing that I feel like as an educator's perspective with me, like substitute teaching, student teaching, whatever you want to call it that's a huge lack right now is like the students are.
Juliet:Like you know, I can just Google this. What's the point of doing something you know hands-on, or like reading a book about something, if I can just look it up and know the answer? You know what I mean. So, like doing a project like this and seeing how excited those kids were and how much it stuck and how much they remembered and you know us talking about the ocean currents, like why does a boat end up somewhere? And having a kid genuinely understand and know like at 10 years old, know about ocean currents and know about those kinds of things and be passionate about it, was like amazing.
Cassie:I want to be so excited about. You know boats that came from America or boats that came from another place, and the faces on those kids when you brought the pictures of your Biddeford students and the pen pal letters is a core memory. Their reaction was just unbelievable. And so talk about being involved in a program for a long time and remembering it. Let's talk a little bit more about the mini main project that brought us there, and we'll get into some of the other bits too. So you are an intern at University of New England, and so that's in Maine in the US. I'm also an alum of UNE a little bit earlier than you, but it's really nice to be able to give back and to have you join us at Educational Passages. Tell us a little bit more about what this internship is and why you're doing it.
Juliet:I'm a education and marine science major at uni, so in order for me to walk across the stage with a cap and gown, I have to do a internship and it's kind of like student teaching, but it was more along the lines of like I don't necessarily want to work directly into a classroom. I was more passionate about teaching marine science. That's where my expertise is is talking about the ocean and getting kids excited about it, and I feel like we should share the story anyway because I think it's hilarious. So originally, when I wrote up and proposed to my professors what I want to do, I called it the Blue Horizons Global Initiative and it was this like eight page document of how much I really wanted to travel and teach and talk about the ocean and somehow integrate.
Juliet:You know STEM education and you know connect classrooms and everything else. So we were connected through our dear lovely friend Carol and Carol Steinhardt and she. I went and had lunch with Cassie and I had originally emailed her that long, ridiculous proposal of what I wanted to do, and me and Cassie went out to lunch together and she let me ramble about it while she was sitting there just her jaw on the floor the whole entire time.
Cassie:Well, meanwhile, you didn't know what Educational Passages was or that we existed in any way. Yeah Right, I think it's important for the audience to know that.
Juliet:I had absolutely no idea what her program was. I just knew that this was, you know, a plug for me to possibly do something I actually wanted to do. So we sit down and have lunch and she let me ramble about what I want to do and all of my dreams and hopes and wonders. The little wide-eyed college student I am and Cassie had literally just put the mini Maine project on the shelf. It was a boat that was built by five Southern Maine students in 20. It was a boat that was built by five Southern Maine students in 20.
Cassie:Yeah, and in 2012. And you know that was way before I came on to EP, so we didn't really have the connections like we do now, where the kids are building the boat, they're naming it, they're doing all of the work, decorating the sail, all of the hands on components. So in 2012, the program was a little different. I mean, we weren't even a nonprofit until 2013. But it was really cool. You know that it was a very localized project. They brought the boat to a couple different schools, including these five Southern Maine schools. Board members launched the MiniMaine coincidentally, launched it the same day as Crimson Tide, which is the boat we talked about in the last episode from Morristown Baird, their very first one that was just recently relaunched. So that's a whole nother deep dive in itself, but these boats were launched December 1st 2012. And I'll just spill the beans now. It took seven years and MiniMaine ended up in Waterville in County Kerry, ireland, and it was recovered by a wonderful person named Rosemary Hill.
Cassie:It was brought to the nearby science center there and they did a project with it all school year the Ocean Champions Project from the Marine Explorers Education Program, and they got some judges special award. They had really learned about the voyage of the Mini Maine, about boat building, about the marine animals in the ocean under the places where the mini Maine sailed. They shared about St Brendan's voyage all of these really awesome components. But they didn't have the US Maine school pen pals part, as we try to encourage with projects now, and so we were kind of missing that. They did a great job over in Ireland but we were really missing this US connection and we weren't able to fundraise to get the sensors added as the second part of this relaunch in Ireland and so we had to put it on the shelf. And we put it on the shelf in November.
Cassie:The Ireland students really wanted to move forward with it, but we just didn't have the resources to do it. So that's the background of before. I met you a month later and so we're sitting at the diner. You told me your initiative, I said how I read it and said I have a proposal or project that parallels this in every single way, and we unearthed the mini main relaunch project.
Juliet:You and I just like clicked right away. It was one of those things that was just like almost freaky.
Cassie:How we had taken the same core reef class at UNE with Jerry Fox and we both recognize that those kinds of experiences and being out in the world and meeting people in different places really can set you on a different path. So we're both inspired by that and you really took this and ran with it. You had already been connected with the classroom in Maine, so tell us about your Biddeford students.
Juliet:Yeah, so I've been substitute teaching at Biddeford since probably freshman or sophomore year of UNE.
Juliet:The community at Biddeford is just absolutely amazing. I've been involved in, like their theater program and, you know, helping with their reading and writing support and I've just like grown that relationship with the school. So one of my really good friends, jerry Nason, who was a student teacher last year I connected with him because he just became a fourth grade teacher this year and he had expressed to me like when we were hanging out over lunch or whatever, he was like man, like the only thing I'm really not excited for is like teaching science and stuff like that. Um, he's like I'm just not a science guy and I was like, well, I gotta, I got a proposal for you, um, so I kind of roped him into the project and you know, honestly, like it just emphasizes everything that ep I think is about is just like supporting those teachers who feel like they are so like drowned in like all of the standards that they have to meet, while also, you know, meeting all of the needs for the students that they have, all of the neurological differences, all of the you know different backgrounds economically that all the students come from.
Juliet:So being able to like help a friend out while also, you know, getting giving these kids like the experience was amazing. So in my Biddeford class we have around 15 students from all over the globe. Biddeford is actually a very diverse place. Really great group of kids. None of them really knew much going into it about the ocean or just you know science stuff in general. You know science stuff in general. They've been super engaged and they've loved it and they are like super, super excited to keep the connection going with our Ireland kids.
Cassie:Right, and so coincidentally you know the Ireland group were fourth graders, fourth class, so same age as the classroom you had kind of picked for this project.
Juliet:Double the size too.
Cassie:Yeah, so we took the learnings and the projects that they had done with the classes in Ireland for that Ocean Champions project and you kind of put your spin on it and a main spin and a sharing with the main students. Some of the similar components, right? So things like marine debris, boat building. What were some of the other lessons that you did?
Juliet:um, we did geography of ireland as well. Um, talking about different animals in ireland, um, one of my favorites was our ocean currents duck project, learning about like a cargo ship that had dropped like tens of thousands of like bath toys and then the bath toys ended up all over the world. And that's how we know about ocean currents and things like that.
Cassie:So you got the kids in Bedford really, really excited and you kind of slowly introduced that you had this group of students in Ireland that really wanted to connect. What were their reactions to that part of it?
Juliet:Some of them like didn't think it was real. Like some of them thought I was genuinely pranking them, Like no, you're not actually going to.
Cassie:Ireland.
Juliet:Well, I thought it wasn't real for a while too, I don't think I did either, but a lot of them were like super excited and it really sparked a conversation that is still continuing like to this day with our kids. They sparked a lot of questions of like what kind of stuff do they do? Like it was obviously stuff that was related to the project, but also like socially they were like what kind of stuff do they do Like? What do they do for fun, like things like that, and it was that was kind of cool to see like their, their global citizenship, kind of like spark in that.
Cassie:Yeah, so what were some of the preparations and things that you did, um with both places, um in getting ready to go to Ireland, and why did we go to Ireland?
Juliet:In preparation. Um well, we got a new sail for the mini-main relaunch that is hopefully happening in the fall.
Cassie:Yeah, because the mini-main showed up without a sail, without much of anything at all other than the word mini-main and, I think, educational Passage's name on it. So yeah, the mast had come off, the sail had come off, it was damaged during a storm. But, it had also been out there for seven years. So I mean lots of stories to tell We'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Cassie:Yeah, and, as we know, with the program now, with the kids having the ability to decorate the sail and to name it, and all of these things that give them the interest to pay attention, you know how do you do that? With a boat that they'd never seen or that they had never known about until now, and so we're like, oh well, why don't we? It needs a new sale anyway. So let's have the students decorate some of it over here.
Cassie:We'll bring it over there and that will be our connection is that the physical sale, physical sale.
Juliet:And we had like a little sale design competition. Shout out Wes, he's the one that won, and the kids decorated. The top half was the main state flag and then the bottom half was the US flag. And then when we went over to the Artford School in Ireland, we brought the sail with us, along with some letters that my kids wrote for their students and our meet the fleet worksheets is pretty much just like an all about me thing, and that did get them like really, really excited. It's just like having that physical aspect of the project, I think.
Cassie:Yeah, and then we ended up going around the room in Ireland asking more questions of each other and it turns out they had already had a list of like 10 questions each in their journals too. So it really helped spark some conversations and we've recorded those reactions and brought them back and then you showed the video to your students in Bedford. So you're really helping to facilitate these global citizenship questions and conversations and I mean I love this in this day and age where you know it's not emails like no, we're actually bringing the legit paper and picture and the drawings and helping students connect in that way. Although I do remember one question at the Artford School and you're like all right, who plays video games?
Cassie:Hands just shot up, every single hand went up and I don't know how to think about that, but it is something that ended up across the board some shared interest, right. So all of a sudden it's like, oh, we play the same video games, we do the same things, we play sports. They're different sports. You know, we eat food, it's different food. And so to be able to kind of see, that I think is the mini boat magic of educational passages in one way.
Cassie:So the other thing, when we were there the day before we went to Ireland and I got to come with you and see you in your element and you had shared the work that they did with the Ocean Champions Project, we really made that connection and they signed their names on the sail and then we gave them mini boat crew pins and they all put on their pins and then we took a picture and we've got this picture of your students with the sail, and then the same sail with the students in Ireland and we asked them at the end you know, will you guys help us out?
Cassie:We've got, you know, a little bit more work to do. Not just the sail, but here's the cargo box. We want to put sensors in it, right, we want to collect some information about the ocean and really continue this project in the fall and we asked them all if they would want to continue and that was another hands up across the board. So I'm really excited this is all going to continue.
Juliet:Yeah, me too. I think just seeing the passion in those kids, like when we were over there, and seeing how excited they were and how they want to learn more and see where it goes, I think really just sums up why you do what you do, why I want to do what I want to do, it's just, it's really cool so you brought those videos back to bitterford.
Cassie:What? Were those reactions in addition to the, the lollipops from from ireland yeah, those lollipops were actually really good.
Juliet:They were like like taffy and the kids were trying to suck on them like regular lollipops and they're like I can chew it. Anyway, overall, I loved putting the video together. I think one of the things I've learned in this internship, too, is I love sharing our message like that artistically. I think it's one thing to like send pictures and everything like that, but for us to have like the live footage of their reactions, the live footage of their questions and the communications like is a whole different world and artistically like I love you know it helps me process all of our trip as well of like the really important bits and pieces of the communication between the kids.
Cassie:We ended up capturing so much amazing things for the trip and it would be great to keep sharing those stories in those ways.
Juliet:Yeah, and I think too, it helps the kids as well, because you have to think I will answer your question, I promise. But you have to think like they're growing up in an age where, visually, they have to be stimulated Like for me personally, like I, it's hard for me to like sit and listen in a lecture and just look at slides, like even in college, and I feel like you're so much more engaged and you're so much more interested in something when you're able to visually see it and like the same aspects of us when we teach, of, like all of our hands-on work that we do yeah, not just visually.
Cassie:It's the multiple learner thing is you have to, and this is why I do the podcast right. Here's one thing for an auditory way to listen to the story, but you know, making it a video version, so there's something visual to see and and making sure everyone has access to that information and to see those stories is important too. Yeah, yeah so anyway.
Juliet:So anyway, back to our original point. But the reactions of my students were, I think, really interesting. It was cool to see them connect, like we said, like the visual of like oh, that's what, you know, they look like us. It sounds really weird, but like they, you know, they are our age and they are actually, you know, like in a classroom like we have, and all the similarities and things like it sparked more questions. For sure.
Juliet:I think it sparked the conversation and they were like well, they're wearing school uniforms and there's double the kids in that classroom and like all of these other things and even some of my kids were asking about, like the decorations on their walls and things like that. So having that connection that way definitely is keeping the conversation very lively and going and it's also like keeping their engagement and their excitement for the project and talking to kids from a different country very much alive. So like we sat and talked to the Ardford kids for quite a while, I think Like we extended into their recess a bit as well, but you know they didn't mind.
Cassie:I loved the recess bit after the formal presentation. You know we were lucky to just hang out for a little bit and the kids all flocked to you. They were like they had so many more questions and, you know, so much interest there to continue the project and then they all thanked us as they went back inside and, um, it just filled my heart, right up.
Juliet:One of the things that I remember like one of my core memories is you and I sitting in that car and like trying to process, like what had just happened, because I think that was our real like liftoff to the trip. I think that was our moment of like, oh my gosh, that's why we're here, that's why, you know, we're on this trip, doing what we're doing, because seeing the passion in those kids and knowing that that's what we're going to take back with us, and the experience and all of the connections and the wonderful feedback that we were getting of the impact of, you know, educational packages.
Cassie:Yeah, I mean, we had started our presentation by asking the students do you all remember the mini main? Like you know, let's start there. And they remembered all of it. And for me, that was just to be able to continue this learning that it's not just throwing mini boats out in the ocean and just seeing where they go. This is so much more than a mini boat. So, as if it couldn't get any better, we're sitting there in the car trying to debrief, realize how all of these things were finally coming together. We're doing it for the kids. I said that in the last one, it's for the kids, for the ocean, so I'll continue to say that, because that's what it is for. Yeah, but we're sitting there and then we're like all right, we got to go, we still have more to do.
Cassie:We headed down to Waterville and we met Rosemary at the Sea Synergy Center, and the Sea Synergy Center are the ones that had led the project, the Ocean Champions, with the students in Artford, and there's also another school, the Bally Skeggs School. So there's two schools that did the Mini-Me project. We were only able to visit one of them while we were in Ireland, but we will loop back with the others as we continue. So we went down and we got to meet Rosemary and it was such a wonderful moment for us to meet her for the first time in person. But she said that she hadn't seen the mini boat since 2019, when she first when it first washed up. So that was a neat moment. They had the boat in storage and we took it out and took some pictures and kind of assessed what the next steps will be to upgrading it. We also talked about the Sea Synergy Center and what they do and they had just kind of moved facilities. So things were all around the place, but they had a jar of these trap tags, which is something near and dear to my heart In that, I think one of the things that gets me really excited about mini boats is I think one of the things that gets me really excited about mini boats is movement of ocean, everything and being able to identify things that come from another place, sometimes things that we don't intend to end up in the ocean currents, like trap tags.
Cassie:So here in New England, a couple states here require these plastic identification tags and in Maine the tags are different colors for different years and for years I've been trying to follow some beachcombing groups on the other side of the Atlantic to help them identify where those things come from and where they go, and Rosemary's been finding them for years and there was this jar of all of them at the center. Well, I geeked out because I was like, oh, that's Maine, that's DFO, that's Canada, that's you know. And some of the orange ones have phone numbers and names on them and, um, I just get excited about that to be able to, to report back to the person, to make a connection, to learn their story, to have a conversation. And that's also the message in a bottle magic.
Juliet:Yeah, I was just going to say that's pretty much all that your program stands for is connecting in that way and connecting through the power of the ocean, and your mini boats really facilitate that message of we're all connected through the ocean, message of like we're all connected like through the ocean.
Juliet:One of my favorite aspects of like educational passages of us going to Ireland and not just the mini Maine but Crimson Current project that we did I love the fact that the people that find these boats are so integrated in the connections as well. It's not like they find the boat and then hand it off and then that's it. They're part of the conversations. They're part of the connections with the schools. They facilitate conversations about why they were there and the things that they do. And, you know, like Rosemary being a part of the mini main project and being able to see the amazing things that she finds and knowing her story and being able to share that with the kids of like you know, these are the kinds of thing that she loves to do and that she does is like I just think that that aspect is so cool and having Rosemary be a part of this was has been like amazing.
Cassie:I think we definitely have to make this a two part podcast, because that's the whole Crimson Current connection and all the other places we visited up in Galway as well. So let's finish up the mini-main story here and just make a whole nother one for another round of mini-boat stories.
Juliet:We ended up going to the place where the mini-main landed, which was super cool Again, just being able to be there and like feel it. Mind you, it was raining quite a lot.
Cassie:It was raining hard, but that did not stop us. I mean to be able to bring to life a GPS location from a place and see it in person and experience the wind and touch the water where these boats land. Absolutely, it was gorgeous, amazing.
Juliet:It was so, so cool, absolutely, it was gorgeous, amazing, it was so, so cool and like again, like we were saying before, it's so different seeing a picture of something and, you know, seeing the thought of it, but actually being there and like absorbing all of that excitement is just like, brings a whole new light to a project.
Cassie:I also liked how every beach we went to was a little bit different and kind of seeing the stuff that washes up and um, not just boats, yeah different sediments, but you know different. Some other marine debris pieces and some seaweeds and all these things and everything has a story to tell yeah, oh, so scenery was just like right it put.
Cassie:it puts it all in perspective. Um, and so this boat had washed up after seven years that's crazy, seven years in the Atlantic Ocean. It had reported its GPS for like three or four years and then the rest was silence. Rosemary finding it in 2019 is the reason we know what happened to the boat. Had she not been there or had someone not seen it, you know it could have been broken up or sunk or what have you, but she brought it to the science center and now we get to continue its story. I mean, how amazing is that?
Juliet:It's so cool, it's just fate and the domino effect and the ripple effect of this project is just immaculate.
Cassie:I think I call it the mini boat magic. So what's next for the mini main? What's next for Juliet?
Juliet:Since we've gotten back, I'm still in the classroom, still in Mr Nathan's class, and we're still doing a lot of really fun activities. We've been talking a lot more about marine debris and connecting it a lot to the things that we saw while we were over in Ireland. We're still trying to facilitate the connection with the Artford School as well.
Cassie:Successfully right. So ASTLing has been absolutely amazing in helping to facilitate sharings of videos. And they've been on Easter break for a little bit, but getting back into it, having them read the Meet the Fleet worksheets and having them write their own. Getting back into it, having them read the Meet the Fleet worksheets and having them write their own, and then hopefully they'll send those to us before you graduate and you can bring them to the Biddeford students. I can't wait for that.
Juliet:Yeah, I'm so, so excited to see the look on, you know, the Biddeford kids' faces and you know really putting the connection for them to light and seeing their reactions, like the Artford students had.
Juliet:But we're still doing a lot of STEM education, learning a lot about the ocean.
Juliet:We are going to do a community assembly to share with the rest of the Biddeford schools of what Mr Nason's class is doing to really get the excitement into the community and the excitement into the kids and hopefully facilitate the relationship with the Biddeford school to keep this going.
Juliet:One of my favorite parts of working with the Biddeford School is that you know these kids wouldn't have the opportunity to learn about, you know, this kind of science, education, stem, whatever you want to call it, you know, without the help of, like our sponsors and things that we've gathered throughout this project, and I think being able to bring this to a school like that has just been so rewarding, because you know they don't have the same exposure as a lot of other kids do, and so being able to bring this educational kind of experience to them and having them really absorb it and get excited about it and then also giving them that aspect of global citizenship, no matter where they're from, and adding whatever experiences that they have from wherever they're from to what we're doing.
Juliet:You know, not only the kids from Maine but the kids that I have from Iraq, from Ghana, philippines, stuff like that and adding that aspect of the global citizenship I think has been so amazing. So, continuing that, continuing our relationship with Biddeford, growing it, continuing our connections with the Artford School, growing that as well, and trying to continue on the relationship even when both classes move on, because my kids will be in the middle school next year and like trying to integrate that into you know what they're doing and everything like that, and just keeping that relationship going.
Cassie:Yeah, that's one thing I'm interested in is that this isn't. We don't want them to move on, we want them to carry this forward, and so how can we build that capacity in the school, not just the one class? So we've been talking to the principal there and I met some of the high school and middle school students. So building that community support, because we want to relaunch the mini-bo, we want to put some sensors in it, we want to do more with it, and so over the summer, you know, turning this into a really big community-wide initiative is definitely our goal.
Juliet:Because I think too, like while we were over there, like one thing that I know clicked with us is that what a bigger impact these boats can really have? Is that what a bigger impact these boats can really have? And like I really want that click to happen with Biddeford, because those students don't have the same opportunities as other students do, and I see how passionate they are once they are introduced to these things and I see how excited they get and how more involved they want to be once they get going. You know, if I could, I would make it a whole class into itself and to just integrate everything that we're learning and, you know, give as much impact as we can.
Cassie:But with what you're doing is you're kind of finding ways where the math class and the science class and everybody can be a part of it, which I think is also an important way to bring the whole community together around it.
Juliet:And just being that support for those teachers, like we were talking about before, like giving them a little bit of breathing room, absolutely because they're great teachers and they want to do these things, but they need the resources and the support to do it.
Cassie:So big shout out to all of our sponsors and donors who made this trip possible in helping us to relaunch the mini main, because truly without that that proposal would still be sitting on the shelf, and all of those students in bitterford and all of those kids in ireland none of that would have happened if that campaign wasn't filled the project is just going to keep impacting more and more students as we go along and it's just going to grow like we've just with this project.
Juliet:you know we've just planted the seed for like such opportunity that Educational Passages has and like such you know, prospective projects that we can do this with more than just Ireland. We can do it with all the connections that we have around the world, like our connections in France and the UK, and like it's just there's so much potential and like everything that we're doing.
Cassie:Yeah, the Azores grouping of mini boats that have landed there over the years have now gaining traction and interest to kind of relaunch mini boats together. And you know, each boat, each island might have a boat, but let's bring all the islands together and make a community out of it.
Juliet:And that's the thing too.
Cassie:you have what over 200 boats launched Like we need to talk about those 200 boats that have been launched 200 boats that have been launched, most with multiple voyages, and I don't know 25% of them still sitting there that could be relaunched, like the mini main, like the Black Rock, which is sitting at the University of Limerick, which you'll hear about in the next episode of the podcast. So there's lots of opportunity just sitting on the shelf and it's only going to happen with amazing people like you, juliet, and amazing people like our donors and sponsors and the community behind Educational Passages. That makes it great. So thanks for those that have been supporting us and keeping us going and please stay on board and let's make some more mini boat magic.
Juliet:Keep that mini boat magic sailing.
Cassie:You have been listening to the Educational Passages podcast. Educational Passages is a nonprofit organization. Please consider making a donation to help us continue our work bringing people together to learn more about the ocean. To donate head over to educationalpassagesorg support. If you're enjoying this program, please consider subscribing to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Podcasts or from wherever you download your podcasts. Thanks for listening.