Grant helps special students sail

Region

HOW TO APPLY

Scholarships are available for the 2012 spring and fall Schoolship seasons. The spring Schoolship program runs from May 1 to June 15, and the fall program runs from Sept. 4 to Oct. 12.

Educators interested in applying can complete an application on the ISEA website, www.schoolship.org. For more information, contact Emily Shaw at 271-3077.

Related Photos

Norris Elementary fourth-graders listen to an Inland Seas Education Association volunteer speak about the biological and anatomical composition of a typical Lake Michigan fish aboard the Manitou, a 114-feet-long schooner, on Grand Traverse Bay in 2008. Record-Eagle/file photo

February 3, 2012

Foundation teams with association to aid schoolchildren

BY JAMES RUSSELL jrussell@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Fri Feb 03, 2012, 07:25 AM EST

TRAVERSE CITY — A field trip to the Inland Seas Schoolship made quite a splash for a group of special education students with the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District.

But the 2011 trip would have been impossible without financial help from Inland Seas, a Suttons Bay nonprofit.

"It was just an amazing day. Some of these kids had never been on a boat before, or seen a boat up close," said Mary Robinson, a TBAISD nurse who organized the trip. "I think that was the only trip those kids did last year, and they're still talking about it. They keep asking, 'Are we going to get to go back on big boat again?'"

The students will indeed have another chance to experience the Great Lakes, thanks to a significant grant to the Inland Seas Education Association from the Herbert and Grace Dow Foundation of Midland. The foundation awarded the nonprofit a three-year, $420,000 grant to help schools pay for the trips.

Emily Shaw, the group's education coordinator, said the money will pay for 50 classes to come aboard in 2012 to learn about the Great Lakes. There is even money to help schools pay for transportation to the ship.

"We're trying to reach out to schools that otherwise wouldn't have been able to sail with us," Shaw said. "We'll be able to start a whole new chapter with other schools, showing them what the program is like and how helpful and amazing it really is."

Inland Seas launched in 1989 to offer hands-on science education about the Great Lakes. Students collect fish, water, plankton and soil samples from the deck of the 77-foot schooner Inland Seas, and they analyze the samples with help from volunteers and instructors.

"Our goal is to protect the Great Lakes through education," Shaw said. "There are students sometimes who will come on that just aren't that excited or enthusiastic about learning. We've received feedback from teachers that some of their worst students come out of this and everything changes for them. They see all these opportunities, and they get excited about school in a way that they weren't before."

Robinson said the students would never have experienced the trip were it not for financial help from Inland Seas.

"If they did not have the scholarship for us, there's no way we could have done it," Robinson said. "They made it possible, and a lot of kids got to experience things they never experienced before."