[B]URLINGTON – Students from local schools are learning the ropes through a new science, math, engineering and technology program on Lake Champlain.
The Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center has offered on-craft courses since 2008, and recently created a new program, Floating Classrooms, that gives more than 900 students a year an opportunity to apply their science and math knowledge as they sail across the lake.
The hands-on learning approach at the center is part of a new state and national push for STEM programs designed to improve student aptitude in science, technology, engineering and math.
Mark Naud, executive director of the center, wants to get kids from Burlington to experience the lake, which defines the Queen City.
Students in grades 4 and 5 from Burlington city schools, as well as middle and high school students from Burlington, Colchester and Winooski are all learning STEM concepts through the sailing center, he said.
“Sailing happens to be a really great sport that teaches and demands a lot of those skills they need,” said Naud, and it builds students’ confidence and communication skills in the process. “It’s one of those things where we’re sort of tricking kids into accidental learning.”
Teacher Sarah Wolfe-Gordon, who teaches fourth-graders and fifth-graders at the Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes Elementary School in Burlington, has been bringing her students to the sailing center for about five years.
“Our goal was and still is to connect our students who primarily live in the Old North End of Burlington to Lake Champlain on a deeper level,” said Wolfe-Gordon. “Many of our students only saw the lake from the shores of North Beach, and we felt that in order to appreciate and learn about our watershed, our students needed to experience being actually on the lake.”
Wolfe-Gordon said students learn what a watershed is, how humans affect the health of Lake Champlain, and the geological forces that have shaped the watershed.
The center has a developed a curriculum based on a program from the US Sailing Association. The classroom lessons are aligned with Next Generation Science Standards and the Math Common Core.
In addition to the Floating Classrooms program, the sailing center also offers an adaptive water sports program for people with physical or cognitive disabilities, said Naud.
Using specialized, adaptive equipment, staff help get people with disabilities get out onto Lake Champlain, said Naud.
The center has several adaptive sailboats specially crafted for people who have limited mobility, with specialized seats. More than 600 people a year use the adaptive equipment, Naud said. This summer, the center is also working with the Special Olympics program for the first time.
