New England Science & Sailing Foundation (NESS) offers a unique education model that empowers students with leadership, teamwork, confidence, and problem-solving skills to ensure academic success. We do this by creating a love of learning through ocean-based experiential programs that serve schools, teachers, and families. This STEM-based curriculum includes marine science, sailing, power boating, and adventure sports. In early 2018, NESS began a self-study including a rigorous review of our curriculum across all major program areas and found that NESS participants are statistically significantly more likely to show an improvement on non-cognitive skill measures than comparison students. They found that NESS participants were over 8 times more likely to show gains in confidence, 5 times more likely to show gains in perseverance, and 4 times more likely to show gains in teamwork.