This course is approved by the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission to satisfy the education requirements for those boaters that are required to complete a boating safety course.

Who Needs a Pennsylvania Boating Safety Education Certificate?

• Anyone born on or after January 1, 1982, operating a boat powered by a motor greater than 25 hp
• Anyone operating a PWC on Pennsylvania public waters

The First Step

• Begin registration by clicking on the Begin! button on the navigation bar.
• Provide your registration information, such as name, birth date, gender, address, e-mail address and additional information required by the state agency.
• None of your information is shared with third parties. Review our disclosure and security information by clicking on the Privacy Policy link provided at the bottom of every page.

Flexibility and Freedom—Your Online "Attendance"

• In order to receive a certificate of completion, you must complete the entire course, including unit quizzes and a final exam.
• The Boat Pennsylvania Course requires three hours of study, excluding time spent taking the final exam.
• You may come and go whenever you please and take as long as you like to complete your course.

All Pages Are Timed

• Because you are required to spend a minimum amount of time studying the course, all the pages are timed.
• The timing is set to a minimum number of seconds for reading each page. If you take longer to read the page than the minimum required, that is fine.
• At the bottom of every page there are two black rectangular buttons that allow you to navigate through the course. You can move ahead to the next page only if you have spent the required amount of time on your current page.
• If you log out of the program or go back to another page before the time has expired on any one page, you will not be given credit for it.
• When you log out, we keep track of your progress so that you can log in again to the course and pick up where you left off by visiting the My Course page.

My Course Page

• Review your progress in the course at any time by clicking on My Course on the navigation bar.
• On the My Course page you will see an outline of the course.
• Click on a unit title to expand the menu and view individual links to topics and pages within that unit. A checkmark next to a unit page indicates you have completed that page.
• You can go back in the course to any page you have read before. However, you cannot jump ahead to pages that you have not yet visited.

Online Sessions Can Expire

• If you have logged in, and there is no activity or interaction with the course for more than fifteen minutes, you will be automatically logged out. A notice stating, “Your session has expired due to inactivity” will appear at the top of the web page.

Logging In and Out

• Once you have registered for the course, you will have a user name and password. Always keep this information handy. If you exit the course or log out, you must log in again with the user name and password to continue with the course.

Changing Your User Name and Password

• If you need to change your log-in information, click on the My Info button on the navigation bar at the top of any web page in the course. Re-submit your revised information using the form provided.

Unit Quizzes

• There is a quiz at the end of each unit. If you don't pass a quiz, you will be required to go back and study the unit again. The clock or timer for the unit pages will be reset, you must study the material again, and then take a new unit quiz. You must pass each unit quiz in order to progress to the next unit.

Practice Exams and Final Exam

• After completing all units, you must take and pass a Final Exam covering all the course material. You must score at least 80% on the Final Exam to pass.
• You will be given the option of taking a Practice Exam or going directly to the Final Exam.
• By taking a Practice Exam, you can check to see if you are sufficiently prepared to take the Final Exam.
• If you fail the Practice Exam, there is no penalty. You can take the Practice Exam as many times as you like in preparation for the Final Exam.

Your Course Certificate

• Once you have successfully completed the course and the Final Exam, you will be given the option to purchase your permanent Pennsylvania Boater Education Certificate online (an additional $10 state fee), which will be mailed to you by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission within 4 - 6 weeks.
• Then, you will be given a link to your temporary Pennsylvania Boater Education Certificate. At that point, you can view and print the certificate from your computer, or have a PDF file of the certificate sent to your email address.