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Jul

29

Community-Based Education – The Colquitz Watershed Stewardship Education Project

Filed Under Biological Diversity, Marine/Aquatic Education, Place-based Education, Programs | Leave a Comment

By Pam Murray

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A school class at Colquitz River Park in Victoria, BC

Along the Cowichan River, surrounded by the smell of cottonwood resin, an elementary school student discovers that dragonfly larvae look like aliens. In a quiet wetland, a middle school teacher marvels as a guest expert shows his class how to fold cat-tails into duck shaped toys and send them downstream with wishes. In a municipal office, a bureaucrat considers a community proposal, initiated by an elementary school class, to create a new park.

Since 1994, the Colquitz Watershed Stewardship Education Project (CWSEP) has been bringing students, teachers, and the community together to experience educational turning points like those above. Headed by teacher Lenny Ross, the award winning project has successfully instilled an environmental ethic in students of all ages and their teachers by connecting them to the watersheds in which they live.

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May

24

Sounds of the Southern Ocean

Filed Under Marine/Aquatic Education | Leave a Comment

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by Bill Hanshumaker
Hatfield Marine Science Center

The Southern Ocean surrounds Antarctica and serves as a conduit between the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Yet because of severe climatic conditions, much of this ocean basin remains unexplored. Polar regions play key roles in the global environment and one goal of our project is to document linkages between changes to the Antarctic ice sheet and the volcano-tectonic seafloor processes in the region. To meet the challenge for continuous monitoring in this extreme environment, researchers from the Hatfield Marine Science Center utilized the Russian icebreaker Yuzhmorgeologiya to deploy an array of Autonomous Underwater Hydrophones (AUH). This new ocean-sensor technology uses cold-water capable, deep-ocean hydrophones to record sounds generated by moving ice sheets, undersea earthquakes and volcanoes; even vocalizations from large baleen whales. When the AUH array is recovered in 2006, sounds that it has captured will enable accurate monitoring of global climate change, as well as identifying previously unknown volcanically active regions on the polar seafloor. Read more

May

19

Lessons of Discovery: Teaching and learning along with your students

Filed Under Activities, Marine/Aquatic Education, Place-based Education, Programs, Schoolyard Classroom, Science | Leave a Comment

Innovative tools allow a teacher to extend class activities on stream ecology and forest history

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Forest Grove Community School student taking a closer look at macroinvertebrates living in a stream near the school.

by Charles Graham

I have made an interesting observation about teaching recently.  Some of the best lessons are not necessarily the carefully planned and orchestrated units, but rather the ones that grew and took shape as the project progressed.  I have found that some of my best teaching has been when I didn’t know the exact outcome in advance and learned something new right along with my students. This has been my experience with environmental exploration into stream ecology and the “Leaf Pack” program. Read more

Apr

16

Rowing and the art of environmental education

Filed Under Programs | Leave a Comment

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Engaging students in the marine sciences

by Susie Vanderburg

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enny Ross, a N.A.M.E. teacher at Strawberry Vale Elementary in Victoria, BC, shared with us a creative and challenging way to engage students in the marine sciences.  When Lenny was a middle school teacher, he developed a partnership with The Rowing Center, a waterfront business on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Rowing

Center staff and Lenny created a unique opportunity for local 6th and 7th graders by offering a teacher workshop along with a one-day field trip to explore marine ecology and learn the art of rowing.  The workshop’s resources included Gloria Snively’s curriculum guide, “Salish Sea: A Handbook for Educators.”  The workshop provided a springboard for teachers to develop and teach units in marine science, preparing students for the field trip.

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