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Harbor City International ACT students spend a day at Lost Key Sled Dogs Kennel.

Harbor City International School is a small public charter school located in downtown Duluth. The school’s mission includes: inclusivity, academic challenge, community engagement, creative expression and global perspective.

During the 2025-2026 school year, Harbor City students focused on sustainability and environmental education in extracurricular clubs, semester classes and symposium classes.

GreenStep School Award
During the 2024-2025 school year, Harbor City was honored by the Minnesota Department of Education as one of Minnesota’s Green Ribbon School nominees, recognizing the school’s work on reducing environmental impact, improving health and wellness, and providing effective environmental education.

The Green Ribbon School nomination led to further recognition as a Minnesota GreenStep School in April 2026. Harbor City has attained the first three steps of the GreenStep program, and has created a Green Team to set goals in order to achieve more steps in the future.

Action Club Team
Harbor City’s environmental service club, Action Club Team (ACT), tackled many projects this year. In October, students planned bat education events and a bake sale fundraiser which raised over $400 for Bat Conservation International.

ACT students led a food drive in which 300 pounds of food was collected for CHUM. Students took part in two Lake Superior beach sweeps through the Adopt-a-Beach campaign by the Alliance for the Great Lakes, picking up trash and tallying what types of trash were found. Trash data is submitted to the Alliance, in order to track trends and advocate for policies to help the Great Lakes.

Hosting the second annual Sustainability Summit at The Depot.

In April, ACT students hosted the second annual Sustainability Summit at The Depot downtown Duluth. Environmental organizations from the area and greater Minnesota tabled at the event and Harbor City’s GSA club ran a clothing swap. ACT students also had the unique opportunity to spend a day at Lost Key Sled Dogs kennel, run by Emily Ford and Anna Hennessy. Students helped with trail maintenance work, enjoyed meeting all of the dogs, and were grateful for the hospitality and kindness of Emily and Anna.

ACT members were also very active in environmental advocacy this school year, including presenting on Environmental Activism for the Youth in Action Make a Difference Conference, meeting with state legislators to advocate for clean water and data center regulation, tabling at Ecolibrium3’s Ecofest event, presenting at the Cafe Scientifique meeting featuring Duluth’s environmental leaders, and also taking part in the youth panel at the Great Lakes Commission annual meeting in Duluth in October.

ACT members were supported in their projects by Youth in Action, a St. Louis County program that promotes student involvement and community projects, and Youth Eco Solutions, a statewide program supporting youth environmental action and social change.

Classes
Biology classes were busy this year with a variety of projects and field experiences. Some highlights included stormwater pollution prevention lessons with Ryan Granlund from the City of Duluth. After students learned about how to prevent stormwater pollution, they took to the Michigan Street sidewalks to create chalk art to teach others about stormwater pollution prevention.

Biology students visited Boulder Lake Environmental Learning Center and learned about community science projects, measuring plant diversity and sampling for benthic macroinvertebrates in order to assess water quality.

Additionally, AP Biology students participated in Sea Grant’s Aquaculture Challenge. Students took part in the four challenge categories of design, monitoring, business and outreach. The challenge included more than 40 teams from 8 states, featuring more than 650 students and coaches. Harbor City’s team won the Grand Prize Award for Best Overall, as well as the Business Challenge Award.

The fall elective course, Ornithology, included field experiences at Hartley Park with Duluth author and photographer Dudley Edmondson; at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory to learn about bird banding and migration counts; and at the Sax Zim Bog to learn about the importance of bogs, peatlands and boreal organisms.

The spring elective class, Herpetology, included field experiences at Boulder Lake Environmental Learning Center, as well as bonus field trips to Hartley Park and the old Lester Park Golf Course.

One Herpetology highlight is the March Amphibian Madness competition, in which students choose an amphibian for which to advocate and attempt to advance in a bracket-style tournament, pitted against fellow classmates/amphibian advocates. Students chose any way to teach the class about their amphibian and then the class voted between the two amphibians in a matchup to determine which creature advanced to the next round.

Two semester-long elective courses included CITS (College in the Schools): Environment and Sustainability (fall) and Climate Justice (spring).

Taking part in the youth panel at the Great Lakes Commission annual meeting in Duluth last October.

Environment and Sustainability was centered around the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and included sustainability challenges, learning about environmental policy and guest speakers to learn about environmental policy and sustainability initiatives.

Climate Justice explored the different aspects and intersectionality between social justice and climate change, using readings, discussions, art, music, guest speakers and writing prompts to study global examples, as well as local instances of climate justice work.

Science students’ artwork was on display in the gallery at the Great Lakes Aquarium from late March to late May 2026. The artwork on display focused on organisms found in the St. Louis River Estuary, created after students learned about the importance of the Estuary, Rights of Nature movements both global and local, and the local organization, Waankam: People for the Estuary, which is focused on Rights of Nature for the St. Louis River Estuary.

Students in Biology, AP Biology, Ornithology, Herpetology and Climate Justice created art for the display. Additionally, a series of canvases created by a Rights of Nature symposium class in the spring of 2024 was an important part of the gallery.

These canvases highlighted the importance of the Estuary, as well as the history of human impacts and possible futures.

Symposium Classes
During Harbor City’s winter symposium courses in early January, students enrolled in the Taking Action on Conservation Issues course spent time at local institutions as well as learning about global initiatives focused on conservation. The class spent time at the Lake Superior Zoo and Great Lakes Aquarium, learning about Species Survival Plans, seeing zookeepers training species, taking a behind the scenes tour, and examining conservation messaging on animal displays.

Students also visited the Sax Zim Bog to learn about the importance of peatlands and bogs, the unique local organisms and how to help protect those areas.

Finally, students chose a specific conservation project to take action, at their school and/or in their community, to help address that specific conservation issue.

In the spring, students spent 5 days as active participants in service learning centered around Sustainable Food Systems. The class visited and helped out at St. Mark’s Giving Garden, AICHO, Eco3’s Lincoln Park Grocery Store, and the Eco3 Urban Farm at Lake Superior College. Students also spent time learning about food systems at Fond Du Lac Tribal and Community College, learning about foraging at the old Lester Park Golf Course, and a day at North Shore Community School, helping elementary students make seed starters and plant trees in their school forest.

Harbor City’s active and engaged students made the most out of environmental education opportunities through clubs, classes and symposium courses in the 2025-26 school year.

Brian Scott is a science teacher at Harbor City International School in downtown Duluth. He earned a BA in Biology from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and an MA in Biology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.