You've landed at Brackish Course — an online school for the working water. Start with a $25 introduction to seaweed, shellfish, fish, or the whole field, then go as deep as you want, all the way to running an operation as a business with graded checkpoints and a certificate you have to actually earn.
Rather read first? Browse the publications shelf: field manuals, recipes, and species cards.
What this is
Brackish Course is a small online school for working-water people. Short introductions to seaweed, shellfish, fish, and the field as a whole, deeper courses on how a farm is actually run, and kitchen classes on cooking what comes out of the water. They group into routes that end somewhere specific.
Who it's for
If you farm shellfish, seaweed, or fish, want to, or teach people who do — you're in the right slip. No background needed. The introductions start at "what is this animal" and the business course ends at "here is my funded plan."
Why it's different
Rules are shown state by state with the agency and the date we checked. The business course hands you the actual working files: budgets, cash-flow models, a feasibility study, a capstone plan, editable and finished both, each with a lab in your browser so you can do the math without a spreadsheet. Steal our homework — that's the point.
Every course mapped is open now. Pick a group to see what is inside each one.
If you are new, begin with the wide view. 5 open today.
Seaweed, shellfish, or fish, each on its own. 3 open today.
Learn one operating system in depth. 5 open today.
Handle it safely, then cook it well. 4 open today.
Records, safety, food safety, and business. 9 open today.
Quiet practice, guiding tours, and hosting visitors on the farm. 3 open today.
A route is a set of courses with a clear end: something you can show, log, or hand to an employer. These are school completion records, not licenses or accredited credentials, and each route says plainly where outside training or supervised hours are still required.
Explore the industry · 3 courses
You finish with: A personal role map, a vocabulary baseline, and a documented next-step plan.
Seaweed farm or harvest work · 6 courses
You finish with: A sourced field log, day-of-work checklist, production record, and operations brief.
Shellfish farm work · 5 courses
You finish with: A growing-area check routine, traceability set, production log, and operations checklist.
RAS technician or operator · 5 courses
You finish with: A monitoring plan, alarm-response exercise, maintenance schedule, and incident record set.
Hatchery technician · 6 courses
You finish with: A batch record, sanitation workflow, transfer checklist, and production exercise.
Open-ocean or nearshore operations · 5 courses
You finish with: A site-day plan, weather decision record, gear checklist, and emergency scenario response.
Founder or farm manager · 6 courses
You finish with: A site screen, permit route, production calendar, enterprise budget, risk register, and business plan.
Processor or product builder · 4 courses
You finish with: A process flow, hazard-awareness exercise, lot record, and buyer brief.
Community advocate or public-process participant · 4 courses
You finish with: A sourced issue brief, stakeholder map, public-comment draft, and claim-check record.
Co-op, collective, or community-owned operation · 5 courses
You finish with: A membership plan, a written way of deciding together, a funding map that is not only bank debt, and a first-year budget.
Kitchen, seafood counter, or food business · 3 courses
You finish with: A handling and storage routine, a filleting and shucking practice log, a cooked repertoire, and a food-safety vocabulary you can use at work.
Naturalist, guide, or farm host · 4 courses
You finish with: A working field journal, live community-science observations, a complete tour plan for a real shore, and a one-page hosting plan for a real farm.
01
Enroll and land
Everything unlocks day one. Jump around, skim ahead, start where you're curious.
02
Work the modules
Short lecture, one real exercise, no busywork. Mark a module done once you've passed the checkpoint that covers it.
03
Build the documents
Feasibility study, social license memo, capstone plan — the same files a lender or a lease board would ask for.
04
Get reviewed, get certified
Human review inside a week, then a verified certificate with a public check page.
Who's teaching
A decade running a women-led, worker-owned seaweed company; college faculty teaching aquaculture, aquaculture business, and marine ecology; and lead of a blue-economy workforce certificate program. Years of tours, workshops, and talks before any of it became a course.
Meet the professor →The world is your oyster — learn to farm it
Enroll today, keep the materials, and every course we add lands in the same library. The water's brackish — exactly how we like it.
