Chris Cerino with students from Bayside Elementary
Sixty fifth grade students from Bayside Elementary School in Queen Anne’s County ventured out onto the Chester River on Monday, March 31, 2014 onboard the schooner SULTANA during the schooner’s first educational sail of its 2014 sailing season. The Bayside Elementary students were the first of more than 5,000 children from six Maryland counties to participate in under-sail educational programs onboard SULTANA in 2014.
Since her launch in 2001, SULTANA’s Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) certified under-sail programs have become a core component of the Chesapeake Bay Studies curriculum for Calvert, Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s and Talbot counties, as well as for individual public and private schools from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware. “Onboard SULTANA we provide an experience that simply can’t be duplicated in the classroom,” said SULTANA’s on-board Education Director Caitlin Ramsburg. “When you combine the hands on experiences of SULTANA with the pre-trip curriculum that teachers provide in the classroom, you create a truly powerful educational experience.”
The Bayside Elementary students sailing on SULTANA during the first week of April are participating in a hands-on program that explores both the history and environment of the Chesapeake. Activities include; setting SULTANA’s sails and learning to steer the 50-ton schooner; trawling the Chester River to collect fish and crabs; learning about the physiology and life-cycles of the animals and plants that live in the Chesapeake; testing the water for salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and nutrient content; and learning about how sailors lived in the 18th century. In addition to sailing on SULTANA, students also spend two hours exploring historic Chestertown, learning about its history as a colonial port, and playing traditional colonial children’s game behind the town’s iconic White Swan Tavern.
The schooner SULTANA will remain in Chestertown for the remainder of April, sailing with students from Queen Anne’s and Caroline counties.
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