Chestertown, Maryland: Nine weeks after venturing out onto the Chesapeake with its first group of students, the Sultana Education Foundation, one of the Chesapeake region’s largest providers of Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) certified on-the-water programs for K-12 students, is approaching the end of its Spring programming season. Since March 31, more than 5,000 students from eight Maryland counties have participated in a Sultana Foundation program, with over 2,800 of these exploring the Chesapeake Bay onboard the schooner SULTANA or through the Foundation’s Tributary and Wetlands Paddling Programs.
The Sultana Foundation’s school programs are specifically designed to provide field content and introductory research experiences that complement MSDE curriculum standards for Environmental Science, Chesapeake Bay Studies, and American History. For most schools a Sultana field experience is the culmination of weeks of classroom preparation and a highlight of their academic year. Based on surveys conducted with the Foundation’s partner schools, approximately 40% of the students participating in the Sultana Education Foundation’s on-the-water programs are taking their very first trip out onto the Chesapeake Bay.
Because of the continued demand for its Field Programs, the Sultana Education Foundation is in the midst of a strategic expansion that will see its program capacity for K-12 students double by 2020. As part of this initiative, the Foundation is set to break ground on a new 8,500 square-foot, LEED Platinum certified Education Center in Chestertown by early 2015. When complete in 2016, this Education Center will greatly enhance the Foundation’s ability to operate in cold-weather months, provide higher-level science programs, and support hands-on service learning initiatives.
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