In Lubec, Maine, just a stone's throw from Canada, only two of the 40 sardine factories this coastal town once shared with its Eastport neighbor remain—just a shadow of the fishing industry that supported families here for generations. "Reviving and sustaining rural areas like these," said Rachel Tompkins, president of the Rural School and Community Trust, "simply can't happen without strengthening the natural ties between school and community." Her organization works with 700 school-community partnerships—including one in Lubec—in some of the nation's most distressed rural areas. "The kids in these projects are showing adults that they can be part of the solution," she continued. "They are a real force for imagining what's possible in America's small towns."

Reviving a Declining Way of Life
Five years ago, a handful of students and their teacher held a town meeting in Lubec, Maine to discuss whether aquaculture might help their struggling fishing community. Few people showed up. The word scared everyone off, recalled Debra, who was 13 at the time and is now a senior at the high school. Not knowing much about it, people figured aquaculture was just another threat to the town's livelihood.

Their age probably didn't help much, either. "In this community like so many others, people judge you by your mistakes, especially if you are young," Debra said. "They expect you to fail."

Undeterred and still curious, the students set out to discover everything they could about the subject—and to learn by doing. Their teacher Debbie Jamieson, who had taught everything from physics to oceanography but knew nothing about aquaculture, learned by their sides. Other adults in the community gradually pitched in, and today Lubec, with its 2,000 residents, is a spawning ground for learn-as-you-go aquaculture.

From Commerce to Science
Students, teachers and community volunteers have turned an abandoned water treatment facility 50 feet from the school into a state-of-the art aquaculture center. Here students raise trout and Atlantic salmon in the newly purified water, fortified with their own brew of nutrients. Recently they added a hydroponics greenhouse. After applying for and receiving a lease from the state of Maine, students started their own mussel farm, and they have also launched a small baitfish business to fill a local need. "You can't help but applaud what these kids are doing," noted Bob Peacock, who used to run the sardine factory his great grandfather started in 1928 and now processes farm-raised salmon.

Back in the classroom, students have devised a scientific experiment yielding important data about the optimum diet for enhancing the roe of sea urchins, a delicacy in Japan and a potentially lucrative item for struggling fishermen. And with 35 to 40 of the high school's roughly 100 students taking aquaculture classes at any one time, ideas for new projects proliferate as rapidly as the mussels now growing again in Cobscook Bay.

One group of students, for example, is monitoring phytoplankton, a toxic alga that can potentially harm fish and, in turn, humans. They send their data to the Maine Department of Marine Resources and to marine biologists internationally. Another group is studying the feasibility of cultivating two species not common to Maine waters, tilapia and yellow perch. A third is creating plans for a small commercial fish smokehouse to be operated by students. Yet another is breeding tropical fish for retail sale.

The work has spread in other ways, too. For the second year in a row, Lubec students have hosted an International Student Marine Conference, where 200 of their peers from Maine and Canada share their work and research. Lubec Consolidated School also expects to be certified this coming fall as Maine's first vocational aquaculture site for high school students.

From Science to Politics
Just as important for this North Atlantic town, students have joined the local debate about how to save Lubec's deteriorating marina—upon which fishermen and other mariners depend—from the destructive waves of the stormy "Northeast fetch." Students wrote, filmed and produced a documentary video with dramatic footage of the marina besieged by snow, wind, and high surf during a raging winter storm. Film in hand, they aim to revive the town's heretofore unsuccessful drive to win state or federal assistance for necessary repairs to the marina's crumbling piers.

All but gone now is the skepticism that first greeted the students' efforts. "I admire the energy of these kids," observed Dianne Tilton, head of the regional economic council. "I admire the results—what they've done with hydroponics astounds me. And I admire how they've pushed people to think differently, to see the powerful link between a community's economic future and its kids."

In turn, the town's residents are expressing their growing confidence in a most concrete way. Despite ever-tightening budgets, Lubec has added $100,000 over the past two years to support the aquaculture program.

"Our success with aquaculture has come from trial and error," reflected Debra, now 18, on the ups and downs of the past five years. "We've shown ourselves and everyone else that it's not getting it right the first time that matters. It's working through mistakes, taking chances, correcting what's wrong. That's how we learn—and how we make the impossible possible."

Work—and Money—Follow the Dreams
In Lubec, the high schoolers' enterprises in aquaculture will benefit from a recent $6 million anonymous gift to support revitalization efforts in their county and two other in Maine.

Perhaps the biggest change in this small rural community, though, is something crucial yet intangible: the expectations for young people. The Forum for Youth Investment, an organization studying youth and community development worldwide, has found a direct link between expectations of young people and what they end up doing. If young people are not widely expected to make a difference in their communities, these findings show, they most likely will not do so—since expectations shape the opportunities open to young people and, in turn, provide the models by which young people shape themselves.

However in Lubec, young people—helped by a handful of adults who believed in them passionately—have turned this dynamic around, changing expectations through their own actions. For themselves and their community, they have created new possibilities around every corner.

This article was adapted from . The full article, which includes stories from Elsa, Texas and Howard, South Dakota is available online, along with more resources, supplementary information, video and audio from the three communities. What Kids Can Do