agencies for information, sketch out designs, vote on a floor-plan , collect cardboard and other building materials, and form committees to build a new world within the classroom. Every student gets the opportunity to use his or her skills to the fullest. Once the construction is completed, students from other classes come in for tours given by the project's builders. The social studies curriculum explored the question "How does a community grow?" A fascination with Joan Aiken's whaling novel , Nightbirds on Nantucket, helped the class focus on Mystic as a vehicle for understanding the roles of geography and raw materials in the growth of a town and its industry. While the students acquired an impressive knowledge of community development, the whaling industry, shipbuilding and maritime life, they also used many other educational disciplines-library and research skills, two and three dimensional art, judgmental selection, letter writing, interpretation of subject matter, materials selection, mathematical measurements and scaling, construction techniques, spelling and vocabulary development, and language skills. And then they had to effec-
tively write and present narratives of what they had learned to a highly critical audience-their own schoolmates! Mystic Seaport Museum 's volunteer PILOTS group was so impressed with the results that they invited the class to explore the real thing in Connecticut. This project, and the overwhelming response from the students and from Mystic Seaport Museum, gave direction to the Maritime Education Initiative and presented us with the example we needed to go forward with it. Emphasis on Adventure Jim Corr, a computer teacher at the Wesley Highland School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was fulfilling teaching obligations on May 22 and was unable to be present at the launch of the Initiative. However, his work helped inspire us, and his experience is a vital part of the case for the Initiative, so his testimony was rendered by telephone and by mail. He regards it as his mission to bring adventure into his classroom. A sailor himself, he contacted the skipper of the Pride of Baltimore II, the topsail schooner which sails as a goodwill ambassador for the State of Maryland, propos-
Top photo, Arthur Werner's students gather the raw materials f or their model of Mystic Seaport Museum. At left , students work on the Mystic lighthouse and Mystic River mural. The Morgan's davit appears in the right of the picture. Below left , the completed Spouter Ta vern and shipsmith' s shop with street lamp and sign. Below right, the Charles W. Morgan. Not shown are a model rowboat, a sloop and a three-dimensional sounding sperm whale. Photos by Arthur Werner.
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SEA HISTORY 62, SUMMER 1992