Invisible+World,+Exploring+Microscopic+Life+(Nick+Lawrence)

Invisible World: Exploring Microscopic Life

The 6th World Environmental Education Congress developed this module among many others released together in one pamphlet. The specific authors of this module are Carlie Wiener, Barbara C. Bruno and Jim Foley.

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 aims to teach students about microscopic life in the ocean. It will have them categorize different sizes of plankton and illustrate the difference in trophic food levels. This also shows the interconnectivity of different food levels and how that the health of an ecosystem can’t be determined just by what one can see with the naked eye.

The module seems properly designed to educate students about the different sizes and classification of microscopic marine organisms. It also serves to show how there is more than meets the eye in nature. However the module focuses too much on the designing of the collection apparatus for the plankton. Instead a previously designed collection device should be used thus freeing up more time to be spent on classifying the plankton and learning about how their overall health is very important to higher trohpic level organisms. The designing of the collection device is a engineering problem, not one of sustainability.

This module can easily be adapted to EcoEd’s literacy goals. The module can be carried out as described in the pamphlet. However, students should be made to understand the relationship between these microscopic organisms and larger organisms such as fish and whales. Like how plants allow many other animals to live and thrive, plankton allows life in the ocean to flourish.

One thing that could be layered into this module to increase its sustainability knowledge is the affect of human activities on plankton. Topics such as ocean acidification and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are ones that come off the top of my head. This would link human activities to the health of the ocean through one dimension.