2009 Education Links of the Month
Prior Education Links of the Month: 2008 | 2007
December Featured Link, courtesy of the OceansWatch
OceansWatch North America uses sailboats to deliver marine conservation and humanitarian aid to islands and coastal communities in developing countries. Working with sailors, divers, students, volunteers, doctors, nurses, ecologists and scientists, they undertake projects that help islands and coastal communities protect their marine environment and develop sustainable, healthy living standards. OceansWatch recognizes that healthy and sustainable marine environments will serve the people that rely on them far into the future. Therefore, they support long term sustainable fisheries for coastal communities in developing countries and wider scale megafauna protection. OceansWatch members use numerous conservation tools, including the Ocean Biogeographical Information System (OBIS). OBIS was established by the Census of Marine Life and makes global marine biogeographic data available freely on the World Wide Web. To learn more, please visit OceansWatch.
November Featured Link, courtesy of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum
The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and partners will host a live webcast of the shipwrecked schooner Sarah Ellen at 10am (EST) on Thursday, November 5, 2009. This free hour-long broadcast will take participants deep under the cold dark waters of Lake Champlain to view the wreck and learn of its tragic story. The ship sank in 1860 and nautical archaeologists will relive her discovery in 1989 with footage captured by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), over 300 feet below the surface. If you miss the live broadcast, don’t worry – the recorded program will be posted on the museum website shortly after the intial broadcast. To learn more, please visit the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum web site.
October Featured Link, courtesy of Sandwatch
Sandwatch is a volunteer network of students, teachers, youth groups and non-governmental and community-based organizations working together to monitor and enhance their beach environments. Sandwatch “seeks to modify the lifestyle and habits of children, youth, and adults on a community-wide basis and to develop awareness of the fragile nature of the marine and coastal environment and the need to use it wisely.” It is an educational process with a strong field monitoring component through which school students and community members learn and work together to critically evaluate the problems and conflicts facing their beach environments and to develop sustainable approaches to address these issues. Sandwatch has a manual of activities available online which has steps for designing and implementing a Sandwatch project, as well as instructions for creating a set of sieves to measure sand compotions and mapping a beach using Google Earth. Their newsletter – The Sandwatcher – with stories from Sandwatch projects all over the globe is also available online. To learn more, please visit the Sandwatch web site.
September Featured Link, courtesy of The Bridge
The Bridge is a growing online collection of reliable, teacher-approved information, data and resources on global, national and regional marine science subjects and issues. A main goal of The Bridge is to improve communications among educators, as well as between educators and researchers. The site offers a search engine to assist in locating resources on all marine science disciplines and ocean literature (for those interested in language arts). If you are interested in a forum that allows scientists and educators to discuss ideas, opportunities and classroom resources, join Scuttlebutt, the Bridge’s marine science education email discussion list. To learn more, please visit The Bridge.
August Featured Link, courtesy of NOAA OER
Image courtesy of Bioluminescence Team 2009, NOAA-OER
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Ocean Exploration and Research Program (OER) has launched the Bioluminescence 2009: Living Light on the Deep Sea Floor Expedition webpage, following a July 20-30, 2009 expedition. The educators working with scientists from the expedition have developed an Ocean Explorer Expedition Education Module (EEM) for the mission. Designed for teachers of students in grades 5-12, the EEM offers educational materials tied to the National Science Education Standards and the Ocean Literacy Essential Principles and Fundamental Concepts. The website includes interactive media, career connections, web logs, and much more. Be sure to check out ORCA’s Eye-in-the-Sea and other visual media.
July Featured Link, courtesy of MAR-ECO
MAR-ECO, a Census of Marine Life (CoML) project which studies the patterns and processes of the ecosystems of the northern mid-Atlantic, allows visitors to their website the opportunity to become a virtual deep sea explorer. The interactive menu allows you to learn more about the MAR-ECO project and specific oceanic phenomenon such as vertical migration and the use of camouflage by marine organisms. Users can explore the oceans’ surface, twilight zone, dark zone and sea floor. Each realm is inhabited by unique and interesting life including fish, whales, plankton and jellyfish. Visit the MAR-ECO deep sea explorer site and learn more about the life in the Atlantic Ocean.
June Featured Link, courtesy of the Year of Science 2009
Celebrate the ocean and water during the month of June. 2009 is the Year of Science (YoS) and the month of June is dedicated to the ocean! The goal of YoS is to “engage the public in science and improve public understanding about how science works, why it matters and who scientists are.” Visit the YoS June web site to learn more about the importance of the ocean and find local events to participate in. You can meet the scientists who are involved in ocean research and can learn more on how YoS strives to connect society to ocean issues. For those young at heart, there is even a “Fun Zone” where you can build your own squid, solve puzzles, help save sharks and take a quiz which challenges you to identify marine life in the deep sea.
YoS is led by participants in the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS), a grassroots effort whose goal is to engage the public in science to increase their understanding of the science and its roles and values to society. COPUS hopes to create new forums for communication and to develop new opportunities for engaging the public with science. To learn more, please visit the YoS web site.
May Featured Link, courtesy of the Endangered Species Coalition
May 15, 2009 is Endangered Species Day. Events will be held across the country to raise awareness about the threats to endangered species, including global warming, and success stories in species recovery. Endangered Species Day is an opportunity for people young and old to learn about the importance of protecting endangered species and everyday actions that people can take to help protect our nation’s disappearing wildlife and last remaining open space. The website offers lists of local events at parks, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, libraries, and schools, as well as a Public Service Announcement to share with others. Kids and adults can participate in festivals, field trips, park tours, community clean-ups, film showings, classroom presentations, and many other fun and educational activities. For Endangered Species Day, young kids are invited to enter a contest for the best pictures and posters depictiing endangered species. Posters can depict one or many endangered species and should express the importance of protecting endangered species, the threats to wildlife and wild places, or the benefits of conservation. The deadline for entry is May 31, 2009.
April Featured Link, courtesy of the Rutgers University
In April, ocean engineers and students from Rutgers University will be launching a small autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), also known as a Slocum Glider, off the coast of New Jersey on a mission to cross the Atlantic Ocean. While past transatlantic journeys have been accomplished by boats and planes, it would be the first time for an AUV. Never before has an underwater robot successfully traveled an ocean all on its own. The 3,300 mile voyage will take at least 6 months for the slow-moving low-energy glider. The ocean is a harsh environment, and the glider will encounter many challenges on its journey. To cross the Atlantic, this AUV will make its way by gliding beneath the ocean’s surface. This year’s goal is not only to make it to Spain but also to do one profile of the ocean each day with the onboard CTD (a piece of equipment that will measure the temperature and salinity of the ocean).
Students from classrooms around the country are also invited to participate in this adventure, by sending a message in the glider and following the journey as the glider crosses the ocean. You too can follow the Glider on the Rutgers Atlantic Crossing site, where you can read the latest blots from the student pilots, check out the latest underwater data from the glider and learn about about the kinds of ocean critters that may be encounter on the Glider’s journey. You can even subscribe to the Glider’s Twitter feed or befriend it on Facebook.
March Featured Link, courtesy of the Google Earth
We recommend that you download Google Earth and explore the new ocean section. The section contains the Census of Marine Life (CoML) layer that highlights news and stories on our global marine expeditions and discoveries with amazing CoML images, and links to websites and even video clips. The Animal Tracking layer, thanks to the CoML project Global Tagging of Pelagic Predators (GTOPP), allows users to track tagged species of fish and marine mammals and learn more about the particular species and types of tags used in their research.
Once the Google Earth 5.0 download is complete, open Google Earth and click on the Ocean Layer in the lower left corner to turn it on. Double click on the CoML layer to follow along on CoML scientific explorations to the coldest, saltiest water on the planet, a new ocean environment created by an ice shelf break, or to the hottest hydrothermal vent ever discovered—hot enough to melt lead! These journeys are only a few of the 129 possibilities for learning more about marine life available on the new Census of Marine Life layer in Ocean in Google Earth.
February Featured Link, courtesy of the National Park Service
Photo from NPS.gov
If you are adventurous and drawn to maritime and U.S. history, jump in a boat and follow our nation’s first ever historic “water trail.” The Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail follows Captain John Smith’s legendary journey and explorations of the Chesapeake’s shorelines and rivers. You can learn more about his interactions with the Native Americans, all while enjoying the scenic views of the estuary. The trail, which covers nearly 3000 miles of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, can be accessed from numerous locations in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Along the trail there are “smart buoys”, developed by the The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), that are interactive and provide information on the history and culture of the area. These buoys also transmit real-time weather and water quality data that can be used for research and educational purposes. Visit the National Park Service website to find maps and trail guides or to learn more about the “smart buoys”. Better yet, visit the Chesapeake and enjoy the trail by boat.
The ‘Save our Seas’ (SOS) Kids web site is full of fun activities for kids ages ten and under. Younger kids will enjoy the coloring pages and story time section, where Super Shark or Nixie the Water Sprite recite stories, such as ‘The Sad Little Shark’, aloud. The website answers questions including “why are the oceans salty?” and “why do we need the oceans?” Older kids can play games, get ideas for ocean themed parties with games like ‘Pin the Fin’, and explore the links to other educational sites. Teenagers can visit SOS Teens and play Sudoku and view SOS e-books including ‘The End of the Line? Global Threats to Sharks.” Activity books can be downloaded as PDFs and printed for kids to color while learning more about marine life.
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@OceanLeadership.org.
To learn about the current happenings of the U.S. National Committee of the Census of Marine Life, please view the NEWSLETTER.
