Letter from the Director:
Happy Summer Solstice! What a bittersweet time of year in New England. We all treat Winter with diverse emotions, I personally LOVE snow but I think our Program Director Cassie would politely disagree. As much as Cassie and I can disagree about what kind of weather we prefer, we will agree that June 21st (Summer Solstice) marks the day when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky and we have the longest amount of daylight of the year. The bittersweet part is that every day thereafter, UNTIL the Winter Solstice we will see less and less of the sunlight but can look forward to the flurries of snow and winter sports. OK, so I’m supposed to focus on summer…
I am proud to say that being the Director of Educational Passages (EP) has given me an opportunity to remember how important the “Education” of EP is to me. Before getting involved with miniboats I was the Associate Director at The Environmental Schools, and for 10 years I taught 5th-8th graders about anything related to science. It didn’t matter if it was astronomy or salt marshes, education is what makes a difference. These miniboats give ALL of us, no matter what age, a chance to remember how important the oceans are to our existence.
Over the past 6 months Cassie has been so busy I can’t keep up. She shares the same passion for education and has proven her skills in how we will reach out to educators and students. She has been making improvements to the website to allow teachers easier access to their miniboat tracks and has been updating lesson plans for enhanced citizen science activities. In June we celebrated World Ocean’s Day and Cassie attended an event where she shared an amazing new mapping activity with interested families and friends. We can’t wait to take this on the road and show kids how fun it is to track the ocean currents with miniboats! Finally we would like to celebrate our 100th miniboat, the Midnight Moon! Our goal is to continue getting as many schools as we can interested in following our miniboats, and we will keep you posted on the next 100!
I truly hope you enjoy this edition of “Passages” and please feel free to contact me directly. We are so excited about 2018 and watching more and more boats make their way around the world.
Be well and Sail On,
~Erin
