Sequaria+in+Schools+(Nick+Lawrence)

Sequaria In Schools:

The 6th World Environmental Education Congress developed this module among many others released together in one pamphlet. The specific authors of this module are Cassie Gurbisz, Laura Murray, Debbie Hinkle and Byron Crump.

This specific edition released by the Environmental Congress was focused solely on the ocean and marine life. The overall purpose of the congress is to convene persons who have a stake environmental and sustainability education and have them share their knowledge and experience.

This question is somewhat redundant but the educational mission of the organization is to provide educational material for teachers to use. This particular edition has several articles about teaching about the ocean in the classroom. Also several learning modules are provided. The overall philosophy of the congress is to provide environmental and sustainability knowledge to educators and the public in general.

This module consists of students taking care of and observing a small aquatic habit. The module recommends using a 70 gallon fish tank. Then the students select a multitude of organisms to live in the habit. They then observe the interactions and status of the fish tank. If any imbalance is found in the mini-ecosystem the students can then make informed choices about what organism are needed to create a stable ecosystem. By having the students measure certain characteristics and write down their observations each day, they will begin to notice the complex relationship between the different organisms living in the tank. By logging their observations daily, they will sharpen their observations skills and begin to understand the mechanics of creating a viable ecosystem.

I think this is a great idea for a module. There is obviously a bit overhead; paying for the aquarium and all the animals that go in it. But setting up a 70gallon fish tank in your schools main hall is cool. Being able to select what goes in this giant tank and caring for the organisms is likely to peak interest of almost nearly everyone. It also gives something for the students to proud of as a group. This module will almost certainly engage kids and teach them about marine life.

This module definitely teaches the kind of literacy the EcoEd Research Group advocates. It gives students firsthand experience of the intricacies of ecosystems and how ecosystem are highly interconnected. There are no individual elements when it comes to ecosystems. It will also teach the difficulty of caring for many different organisms within the same living space. Essentially ecosystems are demanding.

However one thing this module doesn’t directly focus on is sustainability. It does create an emotional attachment to a mini ecosystem which in turn means the students want to see the continued well being of the their sequarium. However it is not certain whether this sort of emotional attachment will leak over into other areas of their life. One way this module could be made to include more sustainability education is perhaps including the affects of pollution on ecosystems. For example they could introduce a localized pollutant into the sequarium and observe its affect on the ecosystem as a whole. Although care must be made to make sure not too much damage is done.