Maine Maritime Museum Alternative Expeditionary Learning Semester Students and instructors pose for a class pic on the banks of the Kennebec River. Photo courtesy of Maine Maritime Museum.

Fifteen middle-school students became the first class to complete Maine Maritime Museum’s Alternative Expeditionary Learning Semester on Dec. 15.

The program, which launched in September, was created to provide a full-time, in-person school option for families in the community. In accordance with the state’s guidelines for physical distancing, enrollment was limited to 15 sixth and seventh-grade students.

Classes, held outside in the museum’s shipyard through November, included projects specific to the local environment and maritime culture. Students tested and tracked the water quality in neighboring Merrymeeting Bay via boat; researched, wrote and presented a proposal to the city council to bring a movie theater to Bath; sailed aboard the Bath-built 1906 schooner Mary E; and studied journals from ship captains and crew in the museum’s archives. The students also voted to choose a distinctly local mascot: the Sturgeon.

The students developed traditional shipbuilding skills, forging dinner bells and decorative hooks in the museum’s blacksmith shop; building three-legged stools and Shaker boxes; and building and racing toboggans with lumber they milled on the museum’s sawmill.

“The inaugural semester could not have gone more smoothly,” said Kurt Spiridakis, director of Watercraft and Traditional Skills, in a news release. “The students were engaged and enthusiastic about the program, and it was inspiring to see a new generation honing the traditional skills that were so important to our region.”

Museum staff are currently discussing opportunities to offer this type of programming in the future, according to the release.