Special Projects

Over the past few years, the Society has developed several special projects with specific groups interested in innovative learning experiences for their students.

The Furnace Brook School in Marshfield each year sends us more than 100 students to learn about the history of the Portland Gale of 1898. Part of their mission at the museum is to learn as much as they can from their tour guide, and then search the museum for more specific details. Then, when they return to school they take either the story of the Portland or the Columbia, two ships lost with all aboard during the storm, and write about what the last few hours on those ships must have been like. They accomplish this creative writing exercise drawing on their knowledge of the storm, from first person accounts of the sights and sounds of the storm.

The Gates School in Scituate has held a “Heroes in Your Hometown” Essay Contest for several years in conjunction with the Society’s maritime museum. The students visit the museum to learn of the various tales of heroism and sacrifice as gleaned from the stories of the lifesavers and lighthouse keepers of Scituate’s past. They are them instructed to write essays on any local hero they choose, a character education exercise asking the students to recognize the embodiment of bravery, courage, selflessness, and the other traits synonymous with heroism. Each winning essay is published in the Society’s maritime museum newsletter Scrapings, and each winning essayist can join his or her family for a personalized tour of the Point Allerton Coast Guard Station in Hull.

The Hatherly School in Scituate will this year be completing a service learning project for the Scituate Historical Society, called “Letterboxing Scituate.” The four third grade classes will each receive an in-class presentation, each class learning about a separate site. They will then visit that site and scout the grounds to see where a “letterbox” could be buried. The students will then provide wayfinding tips from a determined starting point to the letterbox, and will design a stamp for that site. Inside the letterbox will be a notebook, stamp, and stack of postcards. Visitors who find the box will be asked to send back the postcard to the school to show that they have visited the site. Ultimately, the letterbox trail through the Society’s four sites will provide an experiential education program for the Society, an attraction to families visiting Scituate from out of town who want to do something more than just tour the interior of an historic site.

The Society is open to any suggestion from any school group, and is interested in working with any organization in educating young minds.