Girls Club Worldwide

The Riverkeepers's Hudson River Boat Trip August 6

This is Jennifer. She is driving the boat and had a lot of fun that day. She has on a yellow safety jacket of case she falls in the Hudson river.

photographer & text by Lisette

The River Project by Jennifer Suggs

The River Project is a private, non-profit marine biology field station for the protection and restoration of wildlife through research, education, and hands-on programs in urban ecology. Located at Pier 26 in downtown Manhattan, it is an excellent site to include in our Hudson River (Source to Sister Project). On this visit to the River Project the GALA girls toured the indoor facility, which contains a lot of small aquariums with fish, crabs, eels, and other wildlife from the Hudson River. This wildlife is used in the research to test for water quality of the lower Hudson River (and examine the quality of the city’s drinking water supply). The River Project interns were the leaders of this small tour, which was neat because it was teenagers teaching teenagers, and the girls paid attention. Late the River Project Staff, let small experiments out on the pier, these series of experiments were also testing water quality, level, etc. The girls were particularly interested in this activity because it put their chemistry skills to the test! They were able to see the real life applications of the chemistry experiments in school. From the tour, the girls learned about the Super Fund and how the Hudson River has been undergoing a serious clean up for over twenty years, since the days of heavy pollution in the 1960’s and before. Though the waters are cleaner today they still will not be safe for swimming and or fishing for many years to come.