Schooner Adventure Educational Programs

ADVENTURE IN LEARNING

In summer 2008, dockside educational programs designed to teach children, educational professionals, and the general public about America's maritime heritage and ocean ecology will resume once again.

The Schooner Adventure will begin providing dockside educational programs tied to the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks next spring. The nonprofit recently completed a $2.5 million museum-quality restoration of the schooner’s hull and deck. Four educational units entitled The Life, The Work, The Place, and The Community will provide local students and other visitors with an opportunity to learn about the Gloucester’s rich history as the oldest fishing port in America. These curricular units, and others under development, will also be available for schools to download from the Schooner Adventure website, and thus accessible to students around the world.

Tom Brooks, Chair of Adventure’s Education Committee, stated that “these lessons are designed to excite students about science by teaching basic concepts in relation to the real-life experience of being at sea.” The Gloucester-based non-profit also plans to install state-of-the-art electronic equipment that will enable Schooner Adventure to webcast in real time via Internet II Protocol so that, for example, a visitor in Kansas can have the virtual experience of going to sea and handling the vessel. Several grant supported projects are underway to transform the historic schooner’s fishhold into an interactive, multimedia exhibit that will enable visitors to experience what life and work aboard a dory-fishing vessel was like for its captain and crew.

Adventure’s President, Martin Krugman, added that “when the Adventure resumes sailing in 2009, the schooner will also be used for sea-based fisheries research and will afford North Shore students a unique opportunity to collect scientific data on marine environments, fish stock migration, and other topics related to understanding the environmental conditions that affect the fisheries.”

Merrimack Vocational Alternative High School Students volunteer their class time and skills for Adventure

Shop students from the Merrimack Vocational Alternative High School continue to volunteer their class time helping to restore the Adventure. The Lowell-area students have been volunteering since September 2006 and have worked on a variety of projects ranging from the construction of mast covers to the installation of Adventure’s winter covers.

This past spring, the students restored one of Adventure’s dories that now sits pristine and proud on the foredeck. Another class project involved recycling some of Adventure’s old decking and knees, turning them into beautifully made clocks and cribbage boards. These talented students are not only helpful in aiding the restoration, they are a joy to have onboard.

MITS Programs

Schooner Adventure is actively providing professional development workshops for teachers through the MITS program (Museum Institute for Teaching Science.) The Workshops are developed within the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and include units on maritime-related subjects, such as:

Wind Observation (using models to study cause and effect)
Historical Methods of Navigation, including dead reckoning and vector analysis
Weather Forecasting: Folklore and Scientific Methods
Design: A Context for Learning (knot tying, seashell design, and Sea Chanties)
New England Coastal Waters

Click Here to read more about Adventure's 2007 Summer MITS programs

Also available are in-school programs for children of all ages and guided tours of the Adventure for school groups and the general public.

SCHOONER ADVENTURE Spring Lecture Series
The Natural History of Cape Ann

CLICK HERE for Upcoming Lectures

CLICK HERE to read more about our LECTURE SERIES, "The Natural History of Cape Ann"

ABOUT

The Adventure, a knockabout schooner built in 1926, came home to the city of Gloucester in 1988, thanks to Captain Jim Sharp. The only request Captain Sharp made on donating the ship to the city was that the Adventure "continue to be cared for, prominently displayed as a monument to the city of Gloucester and used for the education and pleasure of the public."

The ship has since become a classroom for hands-on experiential learning in math, science, social and cultural studies, and the arts.

Schooner Adventure's educational programming is funded in part by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For more information regarding our educational programs, call Joanne Souza at 978-281-8079.