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New
Bedford ECHO project sets sail
For
many underserved youth in New Bedford the only way to learn
about the rich maritime history in the city that once was among
the most prosperous in the world is to read all about it in
a social studies book. But now thanks to the creation of the
New Bedford ECHO Project, these children can learn all about
it from a unique source: aboard the state-owned sailing vessel
Ernestina.
For
the past few months thousands of students have set sail from
their homeport of New Bedford for the very first time aboard
the Ernestina and learned unforgettable lessons about sea life,
the historic whale fishery, science, maritime history, and how
New Bedford rose to the ranks of the wealthiest city in the
world in the 19th century.
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Students
from New Bedford Global Learning Charter School
and Friends
Academy work together to raise the foresail on Schooner
Ernestina.
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This experience and many other projects, would not have been
possible without the help of a federal grant of $1,689,900 from
the Department of Education to fund the New Bedford ECHO (Education
Through Cultural and Historical Organizations) Project that
comprises the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the education committee
of the New Bedford Oceanarium, the Global Charter School, and
UMass-Dartmouth.
“The opportunities afforded by the ECHO funding from the
Department of Education have allowed the Museum to think broadly
about the potential for collaboration with local partners, as
well as those organizations and audiences identified by legislation
in Alaska and Hawaii,” said Lee Heald, Ph.D., director
of programs at the Museum. “In a short span of time we
have developed new ways to provide local access to the Museum’s
rich resources as well as ways to connect our collections with
partners at a distance.”
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Global
Learning Charter School students enjoy their adventure
on the sea aboard the Ernestina.
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In
addition to the thousands of schoolchildren who called the Ernestina
their classroom for a morning or afternoon this summer and early
fall, the Museum also partnered with the vessel to be a subsidized
lunch program site for the summer groups. In other ECHO activities:
- Staff
from the Inupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, Alaska, came to
work in the Museum’s Research Library. While here, the
Center’s curator discovered a photograph of her great-great-grandfather
taken by a 19th-century photographer from New Bedford, which
she hadn’t known existed.
- Three
Teacher Institutes – one held on the isolated Hawaiian
Island of Molokai, another in the Arctic tundra in Barrow,
Alaska, and the third on the streets of New Bedford –
brought teachers from Alaska, Hawaii and Massachusetts together
in all three locations. These teachers developed strategies
for linking their students together through curricula and
resources to build understanding of cultures across time and
geography.
- Photographic
materials and logbooks in the Museum’s collection related
to the Arctic region that have been scanned and catalogued
will be connected to the Library of Congress’ “Meeting
of Frontiers” website.
- The
Museum’s Education Classroom (located adjacent to the
Jacobs Family Gallery) will be remodeled and refitted into
a new, multi-media education resource center that benefits
learners of all ages from around the world.
- A
partnership with UMass-Dartmouth is allowing the creation
of a Connecting Oceans Academy that will involve 60 teachers
in a yearlong professional development program.
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Students
from New Bedford Global Learning Charter School
and Friends Academy
work together to raise the foresail on Schooner
Ernestina.
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ECHO
funding has been approved for another year of activity. The
Museum looks forward to continuing these broad-based programs
that benefit so many of our school children. We also look forward
to building our capacity to make stories of our rich collections
widely available at home and abroad.
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