Shiver me timbers

Kids become “pirates” in SCIL’s opening mind quest for 2006-07

By RICHARD A. ROSS

LIBERTY, NY — One might equate the idea of pirating with images of rum-sotted buccaneers plundering, stealing and sinking ships to satisfy their lust for treasure and mayhem.

But at this year’s first Sullivan County Interacademic League (SCIL) competition, a new form of pirateering was in play. Students from the county’s eight school districts of Monticello, Liberty, Eldred, Sullivan West, Fallsburg, Tri-Valley, Livingston Manor and Roscoe arrived at Hanofee Park on September 21 to be greeted by the latest brainstorming challenge created by Tri-Valley SCIL mavens Brian Tingley and Ron Hughes.

SCIL has become a staple of “outside the box” learning for county kids for the past 15 years and provides a refreshing and novel way for kids to learn through cooperative learning and problem solving. Most importantly, it makes learning a fun venture.

This year’s SCIL opener, entitled “Shiver Me Timbers,” featured an array of mind-bending challenges rife with pirate themes.

Beginning with Rum Running, teams of young pirates ran to the lake with cups to run “rum” to fill bottles on the tennis court. Filled bottles were then exchanged for materials to make a cannon, which would be used at the end of the competition to fire and hit “ships.” Materials included duct tape, large and small diameter PVC pipe sections and a tennis (cannon) ball.

Meanwhile, other pirating mayhem was underway. In the Treasure Hunt, a team positioned pairs of pirates facing each other within sight distance while one group sent a given message to the others using a code. Once the message was decoded, the team was given a copy of a map to go off in search of a treasure chest that contained a card, which could be used to purchase more cannonballs.

Pirate trivia questions were handled by another set of buccaneers who had to know things like “What was the name of the Pirate Captain in Treasure Island,” (Long John Silver), or “What famous pictured actor starred in Captain Blood?” (Errol Flynn). Other pirate questions required knowledge of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team.

The day’s most daunting mental challenge involved a theoretical pirating raid, requiring pirates to use tidal charts to determine times when a cave which was underwater might be entered when no British patrol boards would be on hand. Using data such as how much time it would take to make the round trip to the cave from the ship, the weight of a pirate, the number of pirates per trip, the weight of treasure and the value of a pound of gold, silver or jewels, the pirates had to plan one trip and state the time of their raid and what chest they were bringing out on each excursion.

Elsewhere, other teams “walked the plank,” using a six-foot two-by-six board between five cinder blocks spaced six feet apart. The task required a strategy to get as many people across the “raging water” (grass) as possible without putting the plank in the water.

At the end of the competition, the entire assemblage of pirates assembled for the cannon firing. Monticello’s cannon, named the “Petey gun,” after their advisor Peter Weinman, looked impressive, but Liberty’s cannon, fired by Jeff Simpson and Kelly Hamlin, sunk far more ships. On-looking pirates guffawed at the various successes and failures but it was all in good fun.

Sullivan West topped the day’s competition and earned the winning 200 points to get out to the lead in this year’s melee of six such events. Second place went to Tri-Valley with 197.61 points. In third was Liberty with 197.38 points. Fourth place was taken by Eldred with 193.81 points and fifth place went to Monticello with 186.37 points.