About 10 University of Virginia students, along with a handful of alumni, two faculty members and consultants, put in another 16-hour workday Thursday at a Chesapeake shipyard. Their mission: to prepare a floating classroom, dubbed the "Learning Barge," for its September launch date.

Thanks in part to a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the students are spending six weeks living in two Virginia Beach townhouses while constructing the classroom, bathrooms, demonstration wetland habitat and breezeway on the solar-powered barge.

Since the project's 2006 inception, more than 100 students have been involved through a variety of means: design studios, environmental seminars, engineering courses, competitions, fundraising efforts and construction.

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