School Year Woodworking
Since 2017, Islesford Boatworks has been a part of the island school children’s academic curriculum for grades K-8.
By connecting the program with the local school, we are introducing kids to new ways to apply the knowledge they learn in the classroom. Boatbuilding provides real-world applications that complement information taught in schools, connecting kids to science, math and social studies in real and relevant ways. In addition to their time in the shop, kids 5th through 8th grades will have one day a week of “Boat math,” which pairs shop skills with the math they are currently learning in the school room, covering from fractions, all the way through geometry and trigonometry!
Aside from augmenting their school learning, this program also provides a way to learn the skills necessary to live on an island with limited resources - where knowing how to repair and maintain things is a necessity for life. To that end, a lot of the projects that they work on in the school program, other than boatbuilding, are designed to teach fundamental day-to-day tool skills as opposed to the specialized skills of boatbuilding.
