Seashore Trolley Museum Teacher Training

Today, the Seashore Trolley Museum hosted what I believe was its first teacher professional development program. Partnering with the Museum of Science in Boston, the trolley museum of Kennebunkport offered "An Alarming Idea" workshop. This day-long workshop empowered elementary school teachers to explore what engineering is, how engineers conduct their work, and how this pertains to electrical circuits. Session leader, Carolyn DeCristofano, showed us the centrality of the design and testing phases of engineering. A rowdy, hands-on activity with index cards (right) warmed us up to the culminating activity of designing and building electrical circuits that would be designed to set off an alarm. Surprised that a circuit-building curriculum would target elementary students? This is the approach of the Engineering Is Elementary program, part of the National Center for Technological Literacy at the Museum of Science. This is a nationwide movement to improve teaching technological literacy in our public schools. Beginning with this initiative, the Seashore Trolley Museum will help disseminate this inquiry-based learning approach in science and integrate it with social studies for teachers in Maine. I have enjoyed thoroughly the opportunity to work as a consultant for STM and facilitate the building of this partnership. Much credit goes to Anita Bernhardt at the Maine Department of Education for suggesting that we should connect with this nationally-renowned program.

The heritage of trolley transportation in Maine is a rich one and offers ample opportunity to connect the intricacies of electrical engineering with social history. Consider this controller whose innards you see at left. It comes from a century-old Atlantic Shore Line Railway Locomotive #100 whose renovation is nearing its end. Stay tuned for more information about an exhibit that will open this summer, offering the public a representation of public transportation in Maine for more than a century.