School/Group Sails

Experiences:

• Engage in sailing the vessel and think critically about teamwork, communication and the safety of themselves and others.
• Haul up sails, coil lines, tie knots and engage with simple machines.
• Learn to read a navigational chart, use coastal piloting techniques and simple mathematics to fix their position
• Learn about how the winds and currents impact navigation.

Central Challenge: Students apply newly acquired skills to figure out their location on a chart.

Experiences: 

• Explore and identify what lives in and around the marine environment.
• Observe several different types of plankton found in San Francisco Bay.
• Discuss how we are all connected to the marine food web.

Central Challenge: Students collect and identify plankton, and discover their importance to themselves, each other and the planet.

Experiences:

• Explore what life was like for sailors during different periods of time.
• Learn what sea shanties are and how sailors use them
• Discuss topics from human migration, unrest and protest, the gold rush and military defenses.
• Engage in environmental and social justice issues around the San Francisco Bay from a maritime perspective.

Central Challenge: Students reflect upon the past and present to identify their own hopes and challenges for the future.

Experiences:

• Apply the scientific method to make predictions and answer questions about the marine environment.
• Explore our dynamic marine ecosystem by deploying scientific instruments and analyzing water samples. 
• Study where the bay’s water comes from and anthropogenic and natural factors that affect its composition–including temperature, salinity and ocean acidification.

Central Challenge: As a field scientist, students collect and analyze data from the San Francisco Bay.

Experiences:

• Engage with Matthew Turner’s hybrid-electric propulsion system
• Discover how sailing energy powers the ship’s electric motors and contributes to our zero- carbon platform.
• Engage in meaningful conversation around topics including sustainable seafood, ocean acidification and microplastics.

Central Challenge: Students will engage with a perspective shift using the shipboard experience as a platform for change to empower students to make individual and community-wide change.

Experiences:

• Bring physics to life by using mechanical advantage to set sail and navigate the Bay.
• Learn a new perspective on sail theory and hull design.
• See how technology has informed sailors through the years.

Central Challenge: Students manipulate simple machines to find out what they do and how they do it.