In keeping with the fine arts emphasis of the Juneau Community Charter School, and our belief that kinesthetic learning styles are important, we envision that these elements can broaden the learning from the boatbuilding project:

• Drama.
  • Nautically-themed play: Full-scale cardboard mockups emerge early in the boatbuilding process to serve as props. May include both Tlingit and western dramatic styles.
  • "Atomic Play": Students will create a play to that dramatizes atoms, molecules, and isotope ratios in some way. Brownian motion on stage! Drama and movement serve as memory tool to help visualize atomic structure. (This element links to isotope ratios in Forest Ecology)

• Music/Movement: Sea Shanties (or Chanteys) were used to rythmically coordinate movements of large groups of sailors. Learning and using sea chanteys in coordinated group movements is ideal for kinesthetic learning styles. The simple format of these songs is easy to learn with groups of children, with minimal accompaniment. There is also an opportunity to bring in a professional musician for community and in-school concert and teaching, perhaps in conjunction with the Sitka Whale Fest (Nov.), who've brought up Connecticut chanteyman Don Sineti for the past three years running.

• Other folk songs - opportunity to bring in a sampling of the enormous array of maritime folks songs, as needed. Traditional, or contemporary renditions such as Gordon Bok.

• Tlingit songs

• Literature
  Captains Courageous: Rudyard Kipling's 1897 classic novel set largely on Grand Banks fishing schooners

• Films, Videos: Sea Chanteys in action - what was it like to work on a sailing ship?
  • Capt. Irving Johnson: Around Cape Horn. Extremely rare, hair raising, real footage of a voyage around Cape Horn in the four-masted barque Peking, narrated by Johnson himself.
    
  • Captains Courageous: Victor Fleming's 1937 B&W film of Kipling's book, with Oscar performance by Spencer Tracy, features good schooner footage. (note - films by this title were remade in 1977 and 1996 (for TV) - do not confuse with the excellent 1937 film!) Teaching guide for the movie. Note: Captains Courageous has also been done as a play
    
  • Tall Ships: High Sea Adventure shows life aboard the Danish sail training vessel Danmark.
    
  • "Seeing Daylight" (A different culture's view of European voyages of exploration)
  • The Journey of Amos Burg

Back to: Boatbuilding: An Integrated Interdisciplinary Approach for the Elementary School Classroom

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Contact:  Fritz Funk (fritzf@alaska.net)