Kent Miller and Melissa Kubousek

Miller’s and Kubousek’s innovative teaching idea, “Urban Boat Builders,” involves a partnership between the Urban Boat Builders organization and schools to provide hands-on, curriculum-oriented, boat building workshops with students. Projects are designed to reinforce classroom learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum. It also helps to develop social and leadership skills, and provide a meaningful way to experience personal successes. This project will allow students to learn math in alternative ways by building boats and participating in a day trip launching their boat. Students will complete this through an intersession, a week-long learning that takes place outside the classroom. This gives students a chance to discover new interests they never knew they had and to interact with one another in new and different ways. This project will involve students from special education and at-risk youth.