GREENFIELD — What do you get when you cross a science project and the last week of school before summer vacation?
For the students at Four Rivers Charter Public School, it means that cardboard boats were floating up and down the Green River on Monday.
The activity is part of the eighth grade science curriculum, as students learned about buoyancy earlier in the school year. They put their knowledge to the test during a visit to the Green River Swimming & Recreation Area as they were tasked with rowing their cardboard boats across the river.
“[This project] is the answer to, ‘What does one do with eighth graders after they have taken the math MCAS and the science MCAS, and there’s still a lot of school year left?'” said eighth grade science teacher Mandy Locke. “It’s really become kind of an indispensable part of our eighth grade passages. … It also becomes part of a hero’s journey and sort of a rite of passage, quite literally. It’s all about teamwork and coming together as a group. Grades-wise, if it floats without them in it, they meet [expectations.] … If they get off the shore with their crew, it’s meeting-plus. [If] they get to the other side, it’s exceeding-minus and if they get back, it’s exceeding.”
While each boat was making the perilous trek across the Green River, students lined the shoreline where the boats took off, and seventh grade Four Rivers students stood on the other side, seeing what awaits them next June. When boats reached the other shoreline, Locke started a countdown, and when she reached one, all of the students shouted “turn around!”
Each boat had at least two passengers, and while the students all had their own individual teams, observers clapped and cheered regardless of which boat made it back to shore.
“Part of their score comes from how they work together, because this group will be together through high school. We always say that Four Rivers students graduate practically as siblings,” Locke said. “By the time they graduate, they have sunken boats together, slept in tents together, hiked things together, biked things together. They really end up pretty tight.”
All the cardboard boats created by students at least met the criteria, with many boats taking on a lot of water in the process. Most, however, were able to make it successfully back after crossing the Green River. One of these boats, the GabeTanic, named after the friend of the students who worked on the boat, took on the least amount of water.
After all the boats made it back to shore in their individual runs, those that were still seaworthy participated in a race to the shore and back. The GabeTanic, captained by Cole Grignaffini and Eli Skinder, made it to the other side of the river and back before most boats even made it halfway across. To celebrate their win, Grignaffini and Skinder fell from the side of their boats, splashing into the water.
“We started with these mini boats that had to hold 200 pennies, and [Grignaffini’s] boat was the best out of the mini boats,” Skinder recounted. “When we got into our groups, we wanted to use his design.”
“We knew we wanted to have a point on it,” Grignaffini said. “We started with a box, we layered it, we folded other boxes over the sides and sewed them on with twine. … We folded [the bow] into a corner, and then we connected it to the bottom with glue.”
The students have known about this project since the beginning of the school year, and according to Locke, it’s something that students have looked forward to since September.
“They’ve known since day one. It’s epic,” Locke said. “Everybody knows you have to do it. Seventh graders bike, eighth graders boat. [The eighth graders] go kayaking in premade boats on Barton Cove the first week of orientation, so they have had the experience of paddling in a boat together and they have a physical understanding.”
While this event is the last step before the eighth graders enter high school, for many students, it provided an enjoyable end to the school year.
“Definitely a good way to end middle school,” Grignaffini said.
