From April 18 to May 17 over 100 ninth grade students were taught by Joanne Christofel how to use navigation charts to determine a boat’s location using Triangulation and to use Dead Reckoning( DR) to calculate the time and distance to a harbor. First students learned the key features of a nautical chart including: depth of water, latitude and longitude, symbols for buoys, day markers, light houses, types of bottoms in the Bay (hard, muddy), and the compass rose.
They used information about the Three Norths and variation along with navigation tools (dividers, parallel rule, and protractor) donated by Weems and Plath to plot courses on charts using Magnetic and True Bearings. Captain Hans J. Huffmann, the Secretary for the Chesapeake Area Professional Captains Association, was a guest speaker for the classes on triangulation.
Mrs. Christofel greatly enjoyed teaching the class. Capt Huffmann was great with the students on the triangulation unit. This was a project based class- not quizzes or tests. They completed a number of hands on activities. At the end students had to create a navigation chart and use all the information they learned to complete a course on their chart using DR, triangulation, and more. The project based class will be added to the National Sailing Hall of Fame’s web site soon.
Dan Walker took the photos.
