About
Philadelphia Waterborne is a program in Engaged Learning, rooted in the core belief that students learn best by doing, especially when that doing is made relevant — constructively, practically, historically, culturally — to their cultural environment and to their daily lives.
Mission
Our mission is to partner with Philadelphia schools and local arts and cultural institutions to offer middle- and high-school students structured boat-building programs that are implemented in their schools. Philadelphia Waterborne is a program in Engaged Learning, an educational initiative rooted in the cultural arts and designed to demonstrate the crucial importance of the arts in supporting successful student educational outcomes.
History
Philadelphia Waterborne began in 2013 and became a fiscally sponsored project of CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia in 2014.
Founder Nick Pagon is a former educator and boat-builder who saw first-hand how Philadelphia schools were failing to teach children in memorable and efficient ways. In response, he took his own skills and interests in boat-building and transferred them into a curriculum that could support concepts that teachers were trying to teach in their own classrooms, giving students the opportunity to learn by doing.
Tapping into his network of colleagues from other boat-building programs across the country, he adapted the curriculum into one that would be better suited for Philadelphia's school system.
In response to increased program demand and organizational capacity, Philadelphia Waterborne added three part-time staff in 2017.
Founder Nick Pagon is a former educator and boat-builder who saw first-hand how Philadelphia schools were failing to teach children in memorable and efficient ways. In response, he took his own skills and interests in boat-building and transferred them into a curriculum that could support concepts that teachers were trying to teach in their own classrooms, giving students the opportunity to learn by doing.
Tapping into his network of colleagues from other boat-building programs across the country, he adapted the curriculum into one that would be better suited for Philadelphia's school system.
In response to increased program demand and organizational capacity, Philadelphia Waterborne added three part-time staff in 2017.
EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
Philadelphia Waterborne is a program in Engaged Learning, rooted in the core belief that students learn best by doing, especially when that doing is made relevant — constructively, practically, historically, culturally — to their cultural environment and to their daily lives.
From that foundation, the mission is three-fold:
- To positively reinforce students’ engagement in their core educational curricula using experiential and project-based educational programming
- To do so by engaging existing cultural arts institutions — and through them the broader adult communities — as essential partners with the schools in that educational process
- To remain experiential, project-based, flexible, and curriculum-centered: reliant upon its partners, with minimal fixed asset infrastructure or permanent staffing, and itself designed both to learn by doing and so to continuously evolve its curriculum as it learns from its projects and its partners.
ContactNicholas Pagon, Director
npagon@philadelphiawaterborne.org |
AddressCultureWorks Greater Philadelphia
1315 Walnut Street, Suite 320 Philadelphia, PA 19107 |
engage
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