Annapolis Maritime Museum MUDDY FEET Education Program
1,700 Anne Arundel County kids slated to get “MUDDY FEET” in AMM’s innovative outdoor education program
With education as its key mission, the Museum is
dedicated to the success of its innovative program,“MUDDY FEET,” which stands for “Maritime
Unbounded Damp & Dirty Yucky Fun
Environmental Education & Training.” The goal of
this program is to ensure that all Annapolis area
students have at least three meaningful watershed
educational experiences by graduation. The
program is consistent with the Maryland Literacy
Plan in theGovernor’s Children in Nature
Partnership and the No Child Left Inside initiative.
Photos: Top, from left - Artist Sue Stockman helps kids from Georgetown East Elementary create a skipjack mosaic; shipwright Steve Halbrook gives 8th-graders from Annapolis Middle a
tour of his shop at Sarles Boatyard. Left, from top - Georgetown East girls work on their journals; an Eagle Cove School student meets a Maryland Terrapin; and Bates 8th graders build a buoy.
The Museum’s education programs are correlated to Anne Arundel Country Public School standards and curricula in language arts, social studies, science and math. Students participate in activities such as recording findings in journals, using newly acquired vocabulary, making observations, taking measurements and making calculations, exploring historic Bay sites, handling artifacts, and speaking with watermen, tradesmen, historians, and artists. Each program incorporates NOAA teaching tools, data, and expertise, such as the “Build-a-Buoy” activity, the Bay Watershed Model, Chesapeake Bay charts, and data from Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy, lesson plans and other curricula.
Photo, right: A 4th
grader dresses up as a waterman
AMM’s MUDDY FEET program incorporates the Maryland state curricula for reading, math, social studies, and science. The curricula are based on proven instructional design with preparation phases, outdoor action phases, and a reflection, analysis, and reporting phase. The course development team includes teachers and experts in environmental education.
Students are assessed on the level of their knowledge about maritime heritage and ecology of the Chesapeake Bay through preand post-tests. All teachers are provided with a program binder which contains curricula to support pre- and post- teaching in the classrooms. The teachers and students receive evaluations to provide the Museum with feedback of their program experiences.
Photo, above: From left - Each student keeps his or her own personal journal to record
impressions
Eastport Elementary students gather together for a group shot, and learn about rain-water
runoff.
AMM’s meaningful watershed experience education programs include:
Read more about each individual program.
MUDDY FEET is made possible through major grants from the NOAA Bay Watershed Education and Training program, the Carol M. Jacobsohn Foundation, the Bank of America Foundation, the City of Annapolis, fundraisers like the Boatyard Beach Bash, and Museum members and other supporters, including the Anne Arundel County Public Schools, Annapolis Bus Company and Watermark Cruises. Volunteers are vital in planning and providing these programs. The Museum’s new volunteer coordinator, Amanda Elliott, is currently recruiting new volunteers for the spring.
Photo, left, from top: A Georgetown East girl learns how to measure a blue crab; Cub Scouts learn oysters reproduce; AMM volunteer teacher Mike Cosenza shows how to read a chart; the crew from West Annapolis Elementary learns how to haul up a jib sail aboard the visiting schooner Mystic Whaler, then explore the tall ship below decks.
Photos, from left: Larry Griffin, who worked at McNasby’s
as a kid, shows Annapolis Elementary students how to shuck oysters;
waterman John VanAlstine shows how to make a net, then stands on the
stern of his work boat to show how to tong for oysters; then students try it
themselves on a custom set of “kid-sized” hand tongs.
Captain Mel Abernathy of Watermark Cruises gives each student from
Georgetown East a turn at the wheel of the tour boat Catherine Marie
Charlotte Rich
AMM
Director of Education
410-295-0104
edu@amaritime.org
May 20, 2010
Annapolis Maritime Museum |
PO Box 3088 |
Annapolis, MD 21403
410 295-0104
office@amaritime.org
