Voyage of Southern Cross

Changing the World One Classroom At a Time.

The Voyage of Southern Cross
Like the North Star, the Southern Cross constellation has long guided seafarers safely across oceans much like the Voyage of a little ship named Southern Cross helps guide students to fuller more meaningful lives. The Voyage is a unique and creative global education program offering inspiration, adventure, and rich educational content available to teachers in support of STEM and STEAM requirements. These learning opportunities will be delivered via live stream interactive broadcasts into classrooms, while the little ship Southern Cross and her best friends explore the world. 



Here's what a 4th/5th Grade Teacher has to say about the program:
"The first leg of the Voyage of the Southern Cross Education Program was incredible for my 4th and 5th grade classroom. My students felt a genuine personal connection with Howard that fostered meaningful student engagement. The class was lucky enough to have video interactions with a mix of personal connection and scientific integration. Phone calls while Howard was sailing the infamous Straits of Magellan, and latitude/longitude updates which we used to plot his course on a map of Tierra Del Fuego made this very real. My students were riveted on the daily map share updates and often recounted and embodied the grit they observed in Howard. STEAM incorporation was ripe with opportunity; we were provided with real world problems, challenges were identified, high interest research was accomplished, and solutions were discussed. I often brought attention back to the engineering process and how important it is for a successful small boat voyage, a superb life lesson. Thank you, Howard Rice for allowing us to sail along with you from the security of our classroom. My future students will be with you for the entire ongoing voyage." —Mr. Derek Gries, Hood River Elementary School, Hood River, OR 

Making the world a better place, one classroom at a time.
Projects like this are expensive, so we are appealing to you, to foundations, institutions, and businesses. Please consider offering financial support to help ensure we can bring this unique education program to thousands of classrooms world wide. We offer the opportunity for you or your organization to align with a meaningful program that is proving to touch young lives in a positive manner, inspiring greater curiosity, thoughtfulness, while challenging them to explore the world around them.

Costs we are incurring over three years are considerable, ranging from multiple country shipping, customs fees, insurance, camera equipment, broadcast tools, and more. 

It's Simple
It’s simple, we wish to make this adventure and learning opportunity free to teachers and students around the world regardless of their resources or technical capabilities. Linking classrooms across the globe with cross cultural student interaction even in the most remote places is our vision. We cannot achieve this without you.

A voyage that has, and continues to change lives
We believe in the power of sharing the adventure of sailing and exploring the world both archived and live streamed into classrooms and homes as a captivating, exciting and inspirational tool. This unique and captivating form of experiential learning will help teachers augment STEM requirements in the sciences and mathematics, while also delivering diverse cultures and rich history. 

One of the core objectives of the Voyage is helping students understand country by country environmental issues and the many creative sustainable solutions being applied. Our goal is to foster feelings of personal responsibility, cultural acceptance and a sense of hope for a better future. Perhaps the most important benefit of the voyage will be educational engagement and the opportunity to excite and inspire young people. 

We are a ready to continue, personally invested, excited, and energized team of voyagers. We are dedicated to the VoySC project because of the amazing results we have seen and the many voices of support that inspire us to work harder. To insure success, we are backed by a distinguished board of advisors with a wide range of educational and management experience. 
 
With your support the “little ship and her best friends” will be able to deliver web based interactive experiences, content rich video, satellite phone broadcasts, and real time tracking. Through a shared experience we can bring children and adults from around the world together in an act of people to people diplomacy and understanding. 

Join us in support of this important project!
Teachers, you can register your classroom, parents you can signup your family; everyone  can sign up for updates, make a donation, become a sponsor, or start a conversation at our site. Along with teachers and students thousands of friends followed leg one of the voyage and we welcome all to continue with us!

VoySC.com

Th e Voyage of Southern Cross is a non-profit llc.

Heartfelt thanks from the Voyage team:
John Welsford
Gary Gnade
Howard Rice
Kate Ebert

And Our Advisory Board
Dr. Demosthenes Lorandos      
Dr. Richard Paulsen                   
Dr. Gail Vander Stoep    
Mr. Tom Pamperin 
Mr. Chuck Leinweber  
Mr. Josh Colvin
Mr. Simeon Baldwin                    
Mr. Patrick Carolan                    
Mr. Skip Denny                  
Mr. Mike Mc Dowell                   
Ms. Denny McNae                                      
Mrs. Sue Woodard