BOC Challenge: Part 2--An ocean of opportunity, The

Teaching Pre K-8, Nov 1995 by Cook, Pamela J

Remember the cover story for the April 1994 issue of Teaching K-8? We certainly do. It was the start of a project that kept us--meaning seven teachers and 160 sixth graders--engaged in an incredible year of adventure and learning.

The story in question, "Every Four Years Sailors Race 'Round the World--Alone" by Allen Raymond, described The BOC Challenge and how one school in Rhode Island turned it into a yearlong thematic unit.

For those of you who missed the article, we should explain that The BOC Challenge is an international sailboat competition held every four years for solo racers. These individuals single-handedly circumnavigate the globe in small sailing vessels.

We began to discuss the article--casually at first, but it became more serious when one of us suggested that we spend next year using a literature-infused curriculum, with the BOC Oceanwatch Program serving as the basis for a multi-disciplinary unit. Within days, the concept dominated our grade level meetings and we began to make plans.

The fact that the sailors would begin the race in Charleston, South Carolina (our home state), was a bonus. We were excited about using a real world event, starting in our own backyard, through which the students could study the oceans and their resources, other countries' cultures and, in general, increase their global awareness.

Action began in the summer of 1994 before the project was to be implemented. Our team of teachers met frequently to research, plan and create a curriculum that would completely immerse students in the study of oceans, yet cover such areas as language arts, math and science that our curriculum requires.

Advance planning. Time, money and effort were spent on collecting items, creating bulletin board ideas and gathering the resources needed to turn our classrooms into seaworthy vessels. Our advance planning and effort certainly paid off. You could see it in the enthusiasm of our students and parents when they boarded for the voyage of their lives in September.

After we explained the process to the students, they eagerly adopted individual BOC sailors they would follow throughout the race. Little did we know at the beginning the genuine heartbreak that would ensue as individual sailors lost their boats, or parts of them, to the raging oceans.

Take Isabelle Autissier, for example. Our female students cheered when she won the first leg that ended in Cape Town, South Africa. She had beaten all competitors, male and female, by several days to weeks by the end of that first leg. Imagine our students' depression when she lost her boat in a violent storm during the second leg and had to be pulled from her boat by helicopter shortly before it sank. In a short time, however, the students recovered and began cheering another sailor who was still in the race.

While our BOC sailors were having their adventures at sea, the students read fiction and nonfiction books about the ocean and sailing. Writing skills were developed as students wrote letters to the sailors, created stories about the ocean and composed poetry with a maritime flavor. Also, spelling rules were taught through a study of the vocabulary students were using in the project.

Ports of call. Social studies received its due attention as students were taught map and research skills while doing projects on the four major ports-of-call visited by the BOC sailors: Charleston, Cape Town, Sydney, Australia and Punta del Este, Uruguay. Students learned about the international date line (when it's Sunday just west of the line, it's Saturday just east of it) and also about seasonal and time differences and cultural differences and similarities as the BOC sailors spent time in each port.

We were fortunate enough to have an Australian living in our community who knew Sydney intimately and he shared considerable information about both the city and the country. A call to our local university turned up two soccer players--one from Cape Town and the other who lived near Punta del Este. These young men charmed everyone as they spent hours discussing their countries with students, who posed some tough questions.

Other members of the community who knew these parts of the world were also invited to speak to the students. Many of these were parents, who thus had a golden opportunity to become involved in their child's learning.

In science class, our students became serious oceanographers. Ecology and the effect of humans on the ocean was an important part of their studies. As a result of studying weather patterns in the ports, they became familiar with many weather terms and instruments used to study weather.

"Shelf life." Students also learned important principles of nutrition while planning meals for people actively involved in sailing 24 hours a day. It became even more challenging when the students found that they'd have to come up with food that was easy to prepare and store on the sailing vessel. For the first time in their lives, students had to study the concept of "shelf life" in selecting foods for the long voyage. Finally, extensive case studies were produced on safety and survival at sea.