Bringing the Ocean into Schools... and At the same time, the local community centre was embarking on a “Community Mapping Project”, in which local residents identified assets and areas of concern in their neighborhood as a basis to determine a long term vision for their community. They wanted to involve students at the local elementary school in the process, and get their input. After talking to the teacher and seeing the high quality work the students had done, their findings: it has been described as a “gateway” to communi- community mapping workshop to teach adults about the mportant work they had been doing.


Schools to the Ocean (continued)


insights and skills to the real world. In so doing, the aquaria foster a passion for learning and critical thinking in many areas of the students’ lives, which is anchored in responsible environmental stewardship. Cummins and Snively (2000) link success in learning to the availability of opportunities that are personally meaningful to students. The Seaquarium is an excellent real-world example of the community association invited students to a


ty-wide lear ing initiatives, with many “hooks” that help achieve suc icessful learning. These hooks include local context (creates a “sense of home”), opportunities to interact with living organisms (adds a feeling of personal connection), a venue to observe the novelty and complexity of nature, and endless opportunities for acquiring and sharing special knowledge. In addition, the basic “user-friendliness” of Seaquaria means they have come to be appreciated as manageable tools that remove some of the ‘fear of


proach. You might think of them as open-ended recipes—each with a unique flavor that reflects individual teachers, classrooms, schools, communities and ecosystems.


Project by grade 6 students, Lansdowne Middle School, Victo- ria, B.C.


1. The Marine Team The phone rings at work and the voice of an anxious elemen-


The result: on a beautiful spring day potentially full of other fun activities, several students presented their work to a gym full of adults from their community, proudly led them on a guided tour of their shoreline community, and highlighted the important features they had discovered on their journey that year.


tary school student greets me. Their beautiful Painted Anemone has a death grip on their lumbering but lovable Sea Cucumber. What should they do? I suggest that they wash and rinse their hands well, so that they don’t introduce any harmful chemicals into their ecosystem, reach into the tank, and gently remove the cucumber from certain death. “No...” they say, “we need Joseph,” a younger, but experienced student who they have identified as their first line of contact in times of emergency. They say that they will take care of it and I ask them to call me back. Ten minutes later the phone rings again. The cucumber is


Example of Community Map by a Grade 5 student.


safe. Joseph has gently rescued their team mascot from certain death and with skill and compassion, placed the anemone into a bucket of seawater and into the refrigerator. They wonder if they should send their anemone to the WestWind seawater system. They think it is too big and aggressive to live in their Seaquarium. They recognized that the Painted Sea Anemone, a high level predator with stinging ten- tacles, was tipping the balance point of the ecosys- tem in their tank. These eight to ten year old students have taken


Some of their work has been incorporated into the “Victoria West Visions Map,” now prominently on display throughout the neighbourhood, and published by Ground Works (www.lifecyclesproject.ca/reso urces/map_vic_west.php). It is a glowing example of the networks that open up as we offer opportunities for our youth to become engaged in the natural world around them.


Victoria West Elementary School Marine Team gathers together to help celebrate the unveiling of the Victoria West Visions map.


science’ at the elementary and middle school levels (Carolsfeld, 2001). Increasing awareness of environmental issues in the Asia


their job as Seaquarium guardians very seriously. Just as Cummins and Snively (2000) have docu- mented, they are learning to work co-operatively, to learn at a deeper level and to hone their leadership skills as they encounter problems that need to be solved—largely because of the deep emotional tie they have developed with the animals and plants in their Seaquarium. We begin our classroom studies by introducing


our stewards to the job at hand: caring for an ecosys- tem full of plants and animals that share many of the needs the students have, but who have to meet those needs for food, shelter, protection, and nurtur- ing in very different ways than we do. In this way


Assessment of Seaquaria in Schools


Pacific Region suggests that these countries of immense marine riches may be another natural fit for Seaquaria – especially at a time when the marine environment is increasingly stressed. In Japan, for example, numerous new environmental initiatives involve school children (www.japanfs.org). An Asia Pacific-Ca- nadian exchange based on Seaquaria would introduce an open- learning tool into a non-Western society. The experience would af- ford rich opportunities for research, helping us to better monitor, evaluate and define the most successful common approaches to meaningful environmental education.


Mentoring in Action


Here, we introduce a few representative classroom and field programs that illustrate the basic framework for our ap-


Page 14


"I never thought I would learn so much until we studied with you. Thanks!" (Elementary School Student from district wide severe behaviour class)


the students also begin to think about how different creatures are adapted to the world they live in, and to appreciate the diversity of life. The conversation includes their responsibility to care for these unique neighbours and to share their new knowledge with others in the community. In this way, the students begin to notice and understand how


"It is a lot easier to understand how an organism lives and eats if you're watching it rather than just hearing about it or reading about it from a text book. (Grade 11 Student)


"I am reaching students more deeply and successfully than ever before" (Grade 6-7 Teacher/Vice Principal)


these creatures meet their needs, while also honing their obser- vational skills. They also become very adept at troubleshooting and recognizing signs that the system is not working as well as it should, so that it can be fixed before any problems arise. The discoveries made during these routine checks prompt many inter- esting discussions, and often lead to new projects and announce- ments that help the rest of the school benefit from what they are learning. Together, we set up teams of students who are responsible for


When we began our journey, our basic premise was that the simple learning of facts does not necessarily translate into knowledge or passion. We were convinced that the actual process of learning is much more important to the successful development of life-skills than simple memorization. While the kind of rote learning that still prevails in many parts of the world has largely been discredited, we wanted to go a step further: to show that teachers need not even


www.clearingmagazine.org/online


monitoring the health and well being of their Seaquarium. Then we set up a marine team log book with data sheets, a feeding schedule and a list of community contacts in case of emergencies. Each day, they record the group name, date, time, temperature,


CLEARING 2010


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