A New School Year. A New Boat Building Season
Launch Day: Harvard-Kent students take to the water in a boat they built themselves
A new school year is underway, and Community Boat Building (CBB) is embarking on our 19th year of building boats with low-income kids in Boston. We are excited to be back with our longtime partners at Harvard-Kent Elementary School.
CBB has worked with Harvard-Kent since 2013. Over the years, boat building has become something of a tradition there. Students hear about it from older brothers and sisters, friends and classmates who came before them. This year, it’s their turn.
Learning by Building
Working in teams of five or six and guided by a CBB teacher, students build real wooden rowboats. They work from plans, measure carefully, mark out their work, shape wood, fit planks and fasten each piece into place. The work requires patience and teamwork. Along the way, they see how a boat gains its strength and balance. Piece by piece, the hull comes together, and then it becomes a boat.
Boat building takes place during the regular school day and is integrated into the fifth-grade curriculum. It combines social-emotional learning (SEL) with hands-on math instruction through measurements and angles, as well as science and spatial thinking through understanding how the boat fits together. These lessons are taught in ways that are not available in a traditional classroom setting, while students build teamwork, communication and confidence.
Students build the 10-foot Periwinkle Junior, designed by Nat Benjamin of Martha’s Vineyard
From the Shop to the Harbor
When the student-built boats return to the Community Boat Building shop in Boston’s Seaport, they are nearly finished. That’s when another part of the CBB community gets involved. Our Tuesday-night volunteers work together to sand, paint and fit a few of the final pieces. Throughout the year, the volunteers also mill and prepare many of the wooden parts that students use as they build their boats.
The project doesn’t end in the shop. At the end of the school year, students, CBB teachers and volunteers gather at Boston Harbor for Launch Day. Students launch the boats, climb aboard and take to the water, rowing boats they built themselves. The day is filled with smiles, laughter and enormous pride. For some, it is their first time on a boat.
What’s Ahead This Year Harvard-Kent expects 35 students to participate this year, with programming beginning in October. At the CBB shop, activity has been centered on making boat parts and preparing for the academic year ahead. We can’t wait for the first student-built boat of the year to return to the shop for finishing work, probably in early November.
The People Behind Every Boat None of this happens without the people and resources behind it. Our teachers spend months guiding students through every stage of the building process. Our volunteers give their evenings, experience and craftsmanship to prepare parts and finish boats. Materials, tools and teachers all cost more than they used to, and CBB depends on great volunteers and donors to make the program possible.
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