The Showcase

Today there is nothing to win and nothing to finish. The work is done. Today the doors open: families, LEAP staff, museum guests, the public.

You are not a student today. You are the museum.

No grades today. There never were going to be. The Showcase is the product. This room, full, is the whole point.

1. Project up at your station. Facing the room, not the wall.
2. Name card beside it. Your name. Your person. Your format.
3. Voyage Journal to the display table. Open it to a page you are proud of.
4. If it moves, plays, or performs: test it once now. Not when guests arrive.
5. Step back three steps. Look at your station like a stranger would. Fix one thing. Then you are done.

Done early? Help a crewmate rig theirs. Ships get launched by crews, not by one sailor.

Guests get a story, not a speech. Thirty seconds, then let the work talk.

Then answer questions. Take your time. You know this story better than anyone in the room.

1. Walk the gallery yourself. See what your crewmates built. You sailed with them. You have earned the tour.
2. Ask them real questions. The same ones guests ask you.
3. Drift back when guests drift your way. Keep one eye on your post.

See a crewmate with an empty station and a full room? Bring a guest over. "Have you met the maker of this one?" That is crew work.

Grab your Journal from the display table on your way in. Circle up.

1. Last log entry. One line, in the captain's voice. Where does your ship sail from here?
2. Two things, out loud, from every sailor. One thing you are proud of. One thing you would do differently. Short is strong.
3. The last line. The cipher crews carry it. You will hear it once. The second time, all hands say it together.

Look at MY COURSE on your back cover before you hand your folder in. On Day 4 it was three maybes in pencil. Today your person stood at your station. That is a course, charted and sailed.

Welcome aboard. Everything in this room was made by the crew: your kids.

For five weeks, one question steered this program. Why would a person choose piracy in 1717? And how would they want you to tell their story?

We chased that question through a real ship. The Whydah sailed as a slave ship. A pirate crew under Sam Bellamy captured her. She wrecked off Cape Cod on April 26, 1717, with 146 people aboard. Divers found her again in 1984, and her bell came up reading THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716. Real ship. Real people. Your kids read the maps, walked the museum, took to the water in kayaks, voted like a pirate crew, and met the people aboard. Then each sailor chose one of those people and built a way to tell their story. That is what fills this room today.

1. Walk. There is no set order. Drift where the room takes you.
2. Ask the makers. Every station has one. Good openers: Whose story did you tell? Why this person? What surprised you?
3. The Voyage Journals are on the display table. Five weeks of daily ship's logs, maps, and plans, one folder per sailor. Please turn the pages gently, one at a time. Museum hands.

Taking photos? Please check with a LEAP staff member before photographing kids other than your own.

Your sailor typed this address every class morning and tapped the red banner. The whole unit lives here, and it stays up after today. Worth a look:

The People tab has the real crew, including a boy somewhere between eight and eleven years old. Ask your sailor about him. Whydah’s Voyage is the same game they earned time on in class.