PORT TOWNSEND — Whether she sets sail or rests moored at Boat Haven marina, the schooner Adventuress serves as a school on water for hundreds of students each year.
Such was the case on a wet Friday morning when students of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe from Sequim, Port Townsend and Port Angeles joined Port Townsend students with the Individualized Choice Education program for a round of floating education.
It gave elementary and middle-school youths a close-up look at life and environment on and beneath the water.
As rain lightly fell, the tribe’s cultural leader, Jeff Monson, formed a drum circle and led the youths in traditional songs near the marina before they boarded the 133-foot-long gaff topsail, two-masted schooner commissioned in 1913.
The three-hour program was funded through a $1,500 grant from Puget Sound Energy Foundation to Sound Experience — the Adventuress’ owner — to give “underserved” youths, those with difficulty learning in traditional classrooms an education on the water.
It benefited 30 youths in grades 4-8 from the tribe and the ICE programs.
Sound Experience, the nonprofit organization that operates the Adventuress’ educational programs, added a “cultural exchange” component to the regular environmental Sound Studies program.
During the program, students also had the chance to share their experiences of the natural environment from their different cultural backgrounds.
Adventuress Capt. Korie Mielke canceled the sail for the day, saying 20-30 knot winds on Port Townsend Bay called for keeping the schooner in “the safest harbor.”
That did not dampened the youths’ opportunities to learn, however, and they divided into groups they playfully named the Shivering Eskimos, the Crackins, the Dry Sea Otters, the Octopuses and the Adventuress Eagle Octopuses.
Shipboard learning
The groups sailed through shipboard learning stations led by Adventuress educator-deckhands who taught the youths about life on the water from knot-tying to nautical skills and intertidal marine life to water quality and life aboard a ship.
“Today is a lot about community,” said Lowell Jons, youth and teen development coordinators for the tribe, who brought along 10 tribal youths.
Jons told the children they would be joining as communities to learn more about the environmental community.
Sound Studies and Sound Explorations are programs designed to spark the imagination and foster an interest in science, leadership and the environment.
As the Adventuress sets out on the waters of Puget Sound, students work as a team to help raise the sails.
They learn about Puget Sound ecology and history by participating in five hands-on discovery stations: Plankton, Marine Life, Watersheds, Nautical Skills and Life Aboard Ship.
Daniel Molotsky, a teacher with Port Townsend School District’s ICE program, said Friday’s learning event was intended to allow 21 of the district’s 70 ICE students to get to know the Jamestown S’Klallam youths and their culture as well as experience the marine community.
Monica Halverson, Adventuress program coordinator, ran the youths through the schooner’s intriguing history, including the time it was used as a pilot boat to shuttle pilots out to ships entering San Francisco Bay, guiding them safely into the harbor.
Sound Experience celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, offering sail training and bringing environmental awareness to Puget Sound.
See the Web site at www.soundexp.org.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.