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  • >>Noah: Here, I'm able to do things that affect how San Diegans think

  • about water, and I'm able to do something where I can put my mark

  • on the world that I will soon be coming into.

  • >>I'm Noah, 16, and I go to the San Diego Met High School,

  • which is a school where students start participating

  • in an internship program, beginning in first semester of ninth grade.

  • Coastkeeper, their mission statement is to have drinkable, swimmable,

  • and fishable waters in San Diego.

  • Basically, we want more fish in our rivers, we want our rivers

  • to be cleaner, and we want it-- them to be less filled with trash.

  • >>Noah: The internship program is a great way for students

  • to find new opportunities,

  • to do things that they might not do during the normal school day,

  • meet people who they wouldn't meet, have experiences, get training--

  • get trained to do things, basically just here's how you need

  • to get your foot in the door.

  • >>Dennis: When Elliot Washor and myself had the opportunity

  • to create a new school, we really closed our eyes and said,

  • "If we didn't know there was such a thing

  • as school, what would it be like?"

  • And it wouldn't be the 50 minute classes and you ring a bell

  • and you run to some other place, that's not what learning is.

  • >>Travis: We have low oxygen,

  • high bacteria then there's really something in the water

  • that we need to figure out.

  • >>Yeah.

  • >>Travis: What's the worst bacteria that we have here in San Diego?

  • >>Noah: Tijuana, no question.

  • >>Travis: No question, yeah.

  • >>Dennis: And so we set out that every kid was going

  • to have their individual learning plan,

  • what are your skills, what are your interests?

  • Then we send them out in the community

  • where the real world's there,

  • and they work two days a week, from ninth grade on.

  • >>Elliot: So instead of going from school to work,

  • we really go from work to school.

  • What are the real academics in the real world

  • that are really being used, and then use that as a motivator

  • to get kids more engaged in school.

  • >>Travis: Having Noah working alongside me is,

  • I think both really valuable for Noah, and really valuable for me.

  • For Noah, he gets really an insider's look

  • at what it's like to have a career.

  • Today we went to the San Diego River and we collected some water samples.

  • First thing we did is we collected a unfiltered water sample

  • that we're going to bring back to the lab and run bacteria analysis on it.

  • So that's how we measure if the water is safe to swim in.

  • We also took a second sample where we filtered it,

  • which was what we did with the pump.

  • That filtered water is going to be used to measure nutrients,

  • and dissolved metals in the water.

  • >>Noah: So it's a high salinity.

  • >>Travis: Which is interesting because we had a rain, recently.

  • >>Yeah.

  • >>So rain, you would expect--

  • >>Yeah, wash out all the salt.

  • >>Noah: He's shown me how to do these things that I had no idea how to do.

  • He's taught me how to sample.

  • He's basically taught me how to use Excel, and all the advanced formulas.

  • >>Travis: That's perfect.

  • You see how when it dips down?

  • >>Yeah.

  • >>That dip is right on the line--

  • >>Noah: Yeah, yeah it's perfect.

  • >>Travis: Noah has the same job I had

  • when I was 23 years old and finishing school.

  • He does data entry, he does quality control checks.

  • I really rely on him at this point.

  • You know, he's 16 years old, and I could not do the job

  • that I do now without him.

  • >>Ready?

  • >>Yeah.

  • >>Let's go.

  • >>Noah: Getting off campus lets me be able to do things and see things

  • that I would never be able to see, except for like career day on campus.

  • >>Travis: When he graduates high school,

  • he's going to have three years, maybe four years of work experience

  • in a lab, and I think it's really going to set him ahead.

  • When he's in college applying for jobs, he's got that extra bump

  • of work experience, of relevant work experience.

  • >>Noah: To have an idea of what

  • to expect before starting your first job, seeing people work,

  • it helps you know the environment and know where you're going.

  • That's what's really great about this.

>>Noah: Here, I'm able to do things that affect how San Diegans think

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