Small boats. Big accomplishments.
The classroom comes alive with an eagerness and enthusiasm when it’s miniboat day at schools across the Pacific Northwest. Students collaborate. They chart ocean tides and predict weather patterns. They craft letters to media, to state representatives and to sister cities in Japan. They build, they paint, they engineer.
And most importantly, they problem solve.
Because what these 5th-7th grade students are trying to accomplish is an amazing and formidable feat: working together with classmates, they are building a 5-foot-long GPS-enabled sailboat in the hope it will sail across the Pacific Ocean and make land in Japan.
It’s all part of an international educational outreach program from the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon.
Pacific Power is proud to support STEAM education curriculums like the miniboat program, because by engaging students with rich, experiential learning opportunities like this, it not only brings long-term value to the students, it helps their communities thrive.
