Rising Tide is an after-school program for students in grades six through nine based at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. In a workshop setting, students learn project design and development, team collaboration, tool management and use, and workshop safety through the building of unique, student-led projects that allow them to explore their own creativity while also discovering connections to the Chesapeake Bay.

The Purple Martin House Project was a project decided on by the Fall 2024 Environmental Engineers Rising Tide students. Working with CBMM’s workshop educators and volunteers, these students collaboratively designed, built, and tested a solution to address a local environmental concern, creating this birdhouse to provide shelter and nesting sites for migrating purple martins. Purple martins are insectivores, so they can help control the populations of many insects, including pests like mosquitoes.