2008 Education Links of the Month
Prior Education Links of the Month: 2007
December Featured Link, courtesy of NOVA
NOVA, a series of programs on PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) “revolves around a simple premise: the world of science is exciting”! A recent NOVA film series, ‘Ocean Animal Emergency’, highlighted northern elephant seals, other pinniped species and the Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP), a Census of Marine Life project. The six chapter film series featured elephant seal research in addition to segments filmed at The Marine Mammal Center of Sausalito, CA. The film outlined the rehabilitation efforts of The Marine Mammal Center, and a journey to Año Nuevo State Reserve for a close look at a healthy population of elephant seals with the TOPP E Seal Team. To view the video, please visit the NOVA ‘Ocean Animal Emergency’ site. Please note that TOPP is featured in Chapter Three.
November Featured Link, courtesy of Whale Trackers
Whales of the Mediterranean Sea, a five-part documentary film series, is available online for download and use by students and teachers, with subtitles in six languages, on the Whale Trackers website. Learn about the many types of whales, dolphins and porpoises, many of which are facing declining populations, as well as the current illegal use of driftnets in the Mediterranean fishing industry. One part of the series will explain the importance of marine sanctuaries which aim to save the marine life that inhabit them. The documentaries were produced to raise awareness, address challenges, create opportunities, and offer potential solutions to the problems facing this semi-enclosed sea in one of the most populous regions in the world. All documentaries (which range from 10-17 minutes in length) are accompanied by complimentary education materials, including teacher’s guides, factsheets classroom activities and suggested online resources.
October Featured Link, courtesy of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute
The Gulf of Maine Research Institute offers an online education page where you can learn all about species native to the Gulf of Maine, including lobsters, whales, and the Atlantic Herring, an extremely important fish in the Gulf. Click on ‘Katahdin to the Sea’ to learn about the many ecosystems in Maine, including estuaries and tidepools (which are often referred to as ‘windows to the sea’). ‘Undersea Landscapes’ explores regions such as the Bay of Fundy where the unique geology of the bay creates extreme tides that cause the water to rise and fall as much as 50 feet each day. And for those that love to read, there are even reviews to help you chose your next ocean-related book!
September Featured Link, courtesy of the John G. Shedd Aquarium
This month, we encourage you to visit the Shedd Educational Adventures (SEA) site. This site provides a number of unique lesson plans, interactive games, and a wonderful collection of fact sheets called the Explorer’s Guide, all based upon the Aquariums’ Wild Reef exhibit, an expansive exhibit based upon marine life and culture in the Philippines. All of these activities are easily sorted by grade (pre-K-12), topic of interest (reefs, sharks), overarching concepts (ecosystems, conservation), and National Science Education Standards. We especially like that the entire Explorer’s guide is available in both English and Spanish! So even if you can’t make to Chicago to visit the Shedd Aquarium, this site may be the next best thing.
August Featured Link, courtesy of The Discovery Channel
There are just two days left to enjoy SHARK WEEK 2008 on the Discovery Channel. Every year the Discovery Channel airs a week-long series of television programs dedicated to amazing facts on sharks. Even if you missed the programs aired on television, the Shark Week website offers plenty of videos, blogs, trivia and games to educate all age groups about sharks. You can follow sharks tagged by scientists and learn about their migration routes, or play Shark Runners, a game that allows you to be the researcher, tagging sharks in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. There is an interactive map which shows the current status of shark populations, as well as areas of notable shark discoveries and areas where sharks are unfortunately under attack. If you are feeling a little silly, upload a photo of yourself to add some shark teeth!
July Featured Link, courtesy of The Luminous Deep
‘The Luminous Deep’, an amazing animation created by two students from the Duncan of Jordanstone Art College in Dundee, UK, with help from researchers at Aberdeen University’s Oceanlab, shows the organisms and processes associated with a humpback whale fall. During the animation, you will learn how the carcass of a dead whale that sinks to the ocean floor nourishes a large interconnected community of scavengers and predators. Many of the creatures attracted to the whale fall are bioluminescent, meaning they produce glowing lights in the dark abyss. Visit ‘The Luminous Deep’ website to view the trailer, meet the crew that produced the animation, and also meet the crew of marine organisms, such as the Bloodbelly comb jelly, featured in the animation. The full animation can be viewed at the Duncan of Jordanstone Animation Degree Show website.
June Featured Link, courtesy of The Ocean Project
June 8th marks World Ocean Day. This year’s theme is “helping our climate/helping our ocean”, focusing on global climate change and its relationship to coral reefs. This year’s theme takes advantage of the International Year of the Reef, also occurring in 2008. Visit the Ocean Project website to learn more about World Ocean Day, coral reefs, how climate change affects our ocean and what you can do daily to benefit the health of the ocean. You can also find World Ocean Day events in your area of the United States, or even worldwide, where you can celebrate the ocean and our connection to it. To help raise awareness of the ocean’s importance in our daily lives, sign the online petition to the United Nations and world’s leaders, encouraging them to protect and conserve the ocean in the present and for future generations.
May Featured Link, courtesy of Deep Earth Academy
The Deep Earth Academy offers ‘Bubba’s Tour’, an interactive tour of the JOIDES Resolution scientific ocean drilling vessel. Take the tour and learn about the vessel, deep sea cores and the scientists and crew that work aboard the vessel. You can even catch a glimpse of the ‘floating laboratories’ where the scientists study the cores to gain more information on the seafloor’s sedimentology, geochemistry and paleontology. Correctly answering challenge questions at each tour stop earns you puzzle pieces, which if correctly assembled, earn you a certificate of achievement! Visit Bubba’s Tour now!
April Featured Link, courtesy of the BBC for Children
The BBC Children’s website offers a game called ‘Deep Sea Explorer’, where you can pilot a manned underwater vehicle, navigating the deep sea, finding new sea life (which you must film), and avoiding the hydrothermal vents. You can learn more about deep sea organisms such as the angler fish, dumbo octopus and gulper eel. Be sure to watch your air supply and collect the extra air canisters along the way, you certainly don’t want to run out!
March Featured Link, courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a great ‘Games and Activities’ page that will keep kids ages 4-13 entertained for days. Younger kids can choose from coloring book pages, tic-tac-toe, creating their own tide pools, various paper crafts and sing along songs about sea stars. Older kids can enjoy crossword puzzles, the ‘Shark School of Art, and interactive games that explore kelp beds and ocean realms only reached by submersibles. You can even send an e-card to your friends and family!
February Featured Link, courtesy of Census of Marine Life’s Tagging of Pacific Predators
Our Census of Marine Life friends at TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators) are celebrating “Elephant Seals Homecoming Days”, documenting the migration of female elephant seals from the North Pacific Ocean to the beaches of Año Nuevo State Reserve in Northern California to give birth to their pups. The TOPP website offers information and fun facts about elephant seals, photos of the tagged ‘momma’ seals and their pups, video clips, interviews with the researchers and links to educational materials for teachers. Choose your favorite seals – their names are Myoceen, Mukurma, Isabel, Clara, Cheddar, Coya, Annie, Guadalupe, and Flora – and check out their trading cards for details on when they were born, who (or what) they were named after and how many pups they’ve given birth to!
January Featured Link, courtesy of Census of Marine Life’s Education and Outreach Team
Our colleagues at the Census of Marine Life Education and Outreach network have embarked on a new educational effort with the creation of their new informative webpage. Take a look at the “Marine Life Discoveries” section of the updated CoML Portal webpage, which describes the important discoveries and species found by CoML scientists, as well as the research being conducted on abundance, distribution, historical populations and predicting future trends. The website also offers an extremely helpful glossary of terms!
If you are affiliated with any of our research projects and would like to send us links to educational materials, please contact Melissa Brodeur at mbrodeur [at] OceanLeadership [dot] org.
To learn about the current happenings of the U.S. National Committee of the Census of Marine Life, please view the NEWSLETTER.
