Educational Videos
~Tom Kastle visits N-K Elementary - Video from Globe Gazette

Tom is also a performer of maritime music who has spent years immersed in the music and lore of the sea as well as the "Inland Seas" of the Great Lakes. He is a US Coast Guard licensed master and has served as captain aboard tall ships including Friends Good Will, Inland Seas, Windy, and Windy II. His school, museum, and institutional performances, workshops, and seminars are steeped both in research as well as actual hands-on experience as part of the living maritime culture. Program and workshop topics include seat shanties and ballads, creative writing, navigation, pirates and privateers, life aboard 19^th century sailing ships, simple machines, and others. Programs and residencies can be designed around your specific needs.

A PIRATE'S LIFE FOR ME - Concert/Lecture
From Long John Silver to Jack Sparrow, everyone seems to love, or at least wants to learn more about, pirates these days. Were they romantic figures or violent, cold blooded criminals (or both)? Learn the stories of the Pirate Queen of Asia , Captain Kidd, Blackbeard. Ballads include "High Barbaree", "Captain Kidd", and "15 Men on a Dead Man's Chest". Grades 4-12.

BUILDING YOUR MARITIME COMMUNITY - Seminar
This program is a 3-hour seminar about identifying, linking, focusing and celebrating your maritime community. Initiate strategies for building maritime awareness and pride through events, seminars, workshops and educational outreach. This seminar was originally developed for the Savannah ( Georgia ) Visitors and Convention Bureau. For events organizers, municipalities, administrators, planners, undergraduate and graduate student projects and others.

THE GREAT LAKES SCOWS OF NEW ZEALAND - Lecture or Concert/Lecture
Many ports have their own resident "tall ship" and Auckland is no exception. When visitors board the tall ship of New Zealand âs National Maritime Museum, they are embarking on a vessel whose design originated in the waters of the North American Great Lakes. Even though these vessels disappeared from the Lakes over a hundred years ago, they continued on across the world, as the ubiquitous wooden working vessel of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. The replica scow Ted Ashby sails from Auckland to this day and other remnants of the once mighty "Phantom Fleet" can still be seen along the coast of New Zealand .

SIMPLE MACHINES ABOARD AND ASHORE
Learn about simple machines by studying the ones used aboard ships including capstans and windlasses (levers), turnbuckles and boarding ramps (inclined planes), block and tackle (pulley and rope), and a ship's wheel that is not really a "wheel" at all! For classroom-sized groups (1-2 classrooms large); grades 3 and up.



SHANTIES AND WORKSONGS (performance and creative writing)
The worksongs of the sea are a great jumping off point for exploring performance and creative writing, getting around writer's block, and performance basics. This workshop is done as a class or small group exercise where students learn about traditional worksong formats, pick a topic, write a song, and perform their song all with 45-60 minutes. Grades 3 and up.

NAVIGATION
Reinforce basic math and science concepts by looking at them from the deck of a ship. Topics include TIME/DISTANCE/SPEED equations, weather, finding the North Star, and TRUE NORTH vs. MAGNETIC NORTH. Grades 4-6.



SCRIMSHAW
A hands-on lecture/workshop that explores the history and techniques of etching images into bone, horn, teeth, and ivory that is associated with the heyday of sail. Synthetic (and even some recycled) materials, safety pins, and washable ink are used in this workshop for teachers and older students.

SPECIAL TOPICS
There are, basically, no aspects of any schoolâs curriculum that cannot be studied or enhanced through maritime studies. Subjects and topics include mathematics, literature, fine arts, history, meteorology, astronomy, physics, music, and more. Teacher in-services and artist-in-residence programs are also available. Call 773-575-7244 for details.

"On behalf of the Rhinelander District Library, thank you for providing us with a great program. It was entertaining, educational and thought provoking. It was nice to have a large audience!!"