Bottle Boat Regatta offers another learning opportunity for students
After the McNeal Elementary First Lego League team didn’t advance to the state level, they looked for another activity to focus on. That’s when they started to build their boat for the Early Learning Coalition’s Bottle Boat Regatta, held Saturday along the Palma Sola Causeway.
The group participated in the race last year and decided to return.
“It’s something different than robotics so they were able to build their own boat and come up with it. So it was another good project,” said Denise Touchberry, STEM teacher at McNeal Elementary School and leader of the team.
One student team member said, “it’s just a conversion,” explaining how they worked to calculate how many bottles they would need to make their boat a success.
The student’s boat, the Gee-Lee Bee-Lee, helped the eight-student team advance through several rounds of races Saturday. It was just one of several teams that gave students the learning opportunity to construct and row their own boat to victory.
As cars sat in traffic along the Palma Sola Causeway on Saturday morning, dozens of students were paddling their way to the finish line in the waters along the road for the Bottle Boat Regatta.
Chants of “Row, row, row” rang out as the groups paddled their hand-made boats and more than 100 bystanders cheered on their favorite teams.
This year, the boats were all very similar in style and functionality, according to Bottle Boat Regatta chairman Cliff Hulsart of the Hernando de Soto Historical Society.
The Hernando de Soto Historical Society partnered with the Early Learning Coalition for Saturday’s event, which has been a Manatee County tradition for more than 30 years, though it has been held at several locations, Hulsart said.
Some of the boats have been in the race for several years, including the one used by experienced boat-builder and fifth-grade teacher at Stewart Elementary School, John Schultz, and his team of students.
Schultz said the students on his team see participation in the regatta as an honor.
The students collect the bottles that keep the boat afloat and help Schultz glue them together. With 12 years of boat building experience, Schultz said they have the assembly down to just a few hours. The body of the boat itself is reused year after year, with some adaptations to account for the flotation.
His students do spend time practicing before the race to make sure their ready for the big day.
“Once it clicks, they get the idea of balancing and rowing,” Schultz said. “It’s always great to see them evolve and work as a team.”
Schultz’s favorite part of the event is meeting parents of his students that participated in the Bottle Boat Regatta as students themselves.
This story was originally published April 8, 2017 at 3:43 PM with the headline "Bottle Boat Regatta offers another learning opportunity for students."