Coming up very soon is Sea Week and, particularly if you are near the beach, a great reason to hit the surf! As always there are a lot of resources already out there. The best place to start is http://seaweek.org.nz/, the 'home site' for the week. They have resources, events, videos and more on the site and it is certainly a great place to start.
One of the pages has a citizen science idea around brown seaweed. NIWA are collecting information about the seaweed to see whether it si an indicator of pollution. the website (http://naturewatch.org.nz/projects/large-brown-seaweed-distributions) has a sign in option using google (which most schools have) or you can register, perhaps as a class. These opportunities for students to work 'with' and 'as' scientists are really valuable in terms of students understanding about science. The NZC statement says that students explore how science works and these kinds of activities enable this... Why do we need to record accurately? What if I just change the data a little? What would happen if everyone exaggerated their observations? The seaweed observations also show the importance of knowledge. Although, as teachers, we're growing our students in terms of their processes, skills, capabilities, etc, we still need the contexts! I'm not going to asses how many types of seaweed the students can identify but they do need to know the different names so as to be able to communicate their observations.
wikipedia image
Scientists don't call Neptune's Necklace "that green bobbly one" because there might be another green bobbly seaweed out there... If I told you about the little yellow flowers growing in my lawn, it could be a daisy or a buttercup (or possibly some other yellow flower!). We use names to communicate what we're noticing so we can be specific and if we use the same name, then others can use our observations, record data, compare results, etc. It would be interesting for the children to discuss why do we need to know the names of the seaweed -what would happen if we all used different names?
Marine Metre Squared, from the University of Otago is another citizen science project. If you go to their website, you'll find resources and ideas as well as information on joining their efforts in monitoring local seashores.
For more ideas, check out NIWA or the science learning hub (https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/events/39-seaweek-2017) for more teacher resources and support. An interesting question -could you do Sea Week without being near a beach? Those of you who have been subjected (!) to my workshops will know that I like seashells. They're great for observations and building curiosity... Get children to draw their shell -can they find their particular shell (or even better, can someone else identify their shell?), what are some of the wonderings they might have... how come the shells are different sizes?, different colours?, why do some shells have rings like on a tree stump?, how strong are the shells?, are shells the same from different beaches or different countries? What senses can they use in observing the shells? You could create a wordbank under the different senses that children could then use for other observations. Could the define what a shell is? Is it different to a rock? Are there some things that are the same between a rock and a shell? Perhaps children could use a Venn diagram to describe the similarities and differences. Could students set up a flow chart for identifying common seashells? Finally, could students chat to a marine biologist either face to face or online (or even better, at the beach!) and learn about their work as a scientist?
I haven't even started on how I could integrate maths, reading and writing into this science but there are lots of opportunities to take science from after lunch and use it as authentic contexts in the morning! And then there's all that lovely technology we can use too!
So, have a go!
Paul
https://seashellsbymillhill.com/
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