MMA Sea Term - Follow the Voyage

Keeping 600 students productive for six weeks on board a 540-foot classroom is a challenging task to accomplish. At first thought one may think its an impossible task, but lucky for the cadets of Mass Maritime there are some extremely intelligent individuals employed by the academy who have created what is called a divisional rotation matrix (that’s just a super fancy phrase for a good schedule).  This works by first dividing all cadets living on board into three equal groups, which we refer to as
divisions one through three. Every day the divisions’ responsibilities will rotate between watch, maintenance, and training.

 Watch is a scheduled duty to ensure proper navigation and operation of the ship.

During the maintenance rotation students learn how to maintain safety equipment, fire-fighting equipment and how to use common tools found in the industry.  For the 1/C and 3/C cadets training involves hands on classrooms, where they learn more about their major either marine
engineering or Marine Transportation.  The 4/C while on training have the opportunity to learn about every major offered at Mass Maritime providing 
an opportunity to make a sound decision about which major they wish to declare.

Read about the different majors offered at the Academy >> here

In addition to the official start of the watch, maintenance and training schedule, "turn two cleaning", personal inspections, and hold inspections commenced as well. Turn two cleaning is a quick sweep down of all the common areas on board the ship.

This task is preformed every morning and night; it only takes about 15 minutes but plays a large role in keeping the ship clean. Personal inspections on the Helo deck are given to 3/C and 4/C to maintain grooming standards and personal appearance.  Hold inspections of all living quarters ensures proper hygiene is maintained.

Technology Tuesday:    

Try this PBS interactive website that illustrates GPS technology 
Next try this “Find it with GPS!“activity explores the technology that makes GPS possible, and takes a look at global variations.

You will work in teams to brainstorm recommendations for applying GPS technology to meet the needs of a global society.