KAR120C Posted June 3, 2010 Share Posted June 3, 2010 Thought I'd share... I just came across an "Ocean Exploration" NOAA curriculum (free! yay!!) while putting together our Marine Biology plans for next year: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/edu/curriculum/welcome.html I've only taken a quick look, but so far it looks like an excellent deep-ocean resource. We're in NC, so I'm focusing mainly on our "local" (ish) coastal communities and places we can visit and/or volunteer... but this looks like it will fill in the not-so-immediately-accessible parts very well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane in NC Posted June 3, 2010 Share Posted June 3, 2010 Thought I'd share... I just came across an "Ocean Exploration" NOAA curriculum (free! yay!!) while putting together our Marine Biology plans for next year: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/edu/curriculum/welcome.html I've only taken a quick look, but so far it looks like an excellent deep-ocean resource. We're in NC, so I'm focusing mainly on our "local" (ish) coastal communities and places we can visit and/or volunteer... but this looks like it will fill in the not-so-immediately-accessible parts very well. Ahoy there! Just a note that the NOAA curriculum looks like it is leaning a bit more toward oceanography than marine bio. If you choose to go that route, you might be interested in something I posted in another thread on the General Board. MATE is an annual remote operated vehicle (ROV) competition for students. Some students who had previously not heard of ROVs might be sufficiently intrigued because of the BP disaster. You can check out MATE here. A great starting point to learn about ROVs is the book Build Your Own Underwater Robot And Other Wet Projects (here). My son has constructed two of the ROVs in this book, recommends the more sophisticated one, the Sea Fox, which has bilge pumps. This would be a terrific hands on project for an oceanography or marine bio class, particularly if you have kids who enjoy hands on activities. This site can inspire you. I have a number of other marine bio/oceanography related ideas if anyone ever wants to pick my brain. Best, Jane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAR120C Posted June 3, 2010 Author Share Posted June 3, 2010 Ahoy there! Just a note that the NOAA curriculum looks like it is leaning a bit more toward oceanography than marine bio. The local-ish stuff we're doing is heavily biology/ecology, so a little more oceanography is a good complement... but I should probably have titled the post something different.... :blush: The second half of the curriculum is more biology than the first half, but you're right - if it were our main spine I'd call the course Ocean Science or something less life-science-specific. I actually have the ROV book too! I'm hoping the Sea Fox gets done as a summer project before the fall schedule is in full swing (and while we have the neighborhood pool to test it in...) The competitions look tempting, but I think I'll not mention it to DS this year. I don't think the schedule can hold one more thing! LOL I'd love any other resources you'd like to share! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane in NC Posted June 3, 2010 Share Posted June 3, 2010 The local-ish stuff we're doing is heavily biology/ecology, so a little more oceanography is a good complement... but I should probably have titled the post something different.... :blush: The second half of the curriculum is more biology than the first half, but you're right - if it were our main spine I'd call the course Ocean Science or something less life-science-specific. I actually have the ROV book too! I'm hoping the Sea Fox gets done as a summer project before the fall schedule is in full swing (and while we have the neighborhood pool to test it in...) The competitions look tempting, but I think I'll not mention it to DS this year. I don't think the schedule can hold one more thing! LOL I'd love any other resources you'd like to share! Semester at Sea has a variety of lesson plans available for grades K-12. Click here to check out the list that covers marine bio, oceanography, nautical science and some ecology. A marine microbial activity is making a Winogradsky column (here). The link leads you to a list of lesson plans on this theme. The Marine Biology Lab in Woods Hole hosts a series of Friday evening lectures for non-specialists (although they are high brow in content). You can watch the summer lectures from '09 via the web. Glad to hear you have the ROV book! My son loved building the ROVs but he was not too impressed with the more simple one. Maybe that was in retrospect, after they built the second. A swimming pool is a perfect test facility. My son did not do the competition but one of his friends was on a team. Very intense competition but it led to good things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAR120C Posted June 4, 2010 Author Share Posted June 4, 2010 Semester at Sea has a variety of lesson plans available for grades K-12. Click here to check out the list that covers marine bio, oceanography, nautical science and some ecology. A marine microbial activity is making a Winogradsky column (here). The link leads you to a list of lesson plans on this theme. The Marine Biology Lab in Woods Hole hosts a series of Friday evening lectures for non-specialists (although they are high brow in content). You can watch the summer lectures from '09 via the web. Glad to hear you have the ROV book! My son loved building the ROVs but he was not too impressed with the more simple one. Maybe that was in retrospect, after they built the second. A swimming pool is a perfect test facility. My son did not do the competition but one of his friends was on a team. Very intense competition but it led to good things. Thank you!! We'll definitely add the Winogradsky column - that looks excellent (and it looks like something we could do fresh vs. salt for some interesting comparisons....) I spent all day compiling bookmarks and downloading pdfs and I really think we're going to get to the end of the year and find we've only scratched the surface.... LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny_Weatherwax Posted June 4, 2010 Share Posted June 4, 2010 Thank you so much for this thread. This has been informative for me, especially now that DS is looking for Marine Biology educational opportunities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAR120C Posted June 4, 2010 Author Share Posted June 4, 2010 Thank you so much for this thread. This has been informative for me, especially now that DS is looking for Marine Biology educational opportunities. I'll share anyway... :) If the specific sites aren't quite right it might give you ideas of where to look locally.... NC has a Department of Environmental Education with a reasonably good website, including ocean-related stuff, and general water quality information. One thing I discovered there was that apparently PS high school students are required to do a senior project, and so there are lists of potential mentors! Not all marine of course, but there's a small handful that could be useful... The National Wildlife Refuges have educational programs... many of which are aimed much younger than I'm looking for, but they might make a good volunteer opportunity if not an educational resource. Or they could be a fun diversion. There's an Ocean Conservancy program for preventing and cleaning up Marine Debris (and a ton of oil spill information!) that again could be an excellent volunteer opportunity. There are regional Sea Grant programs through NOAA that have free or inexpensive resources, and the NC one at least has a mini-grant program for people involved in fishing from the non-academic end (commercial or recreational fishermen) to propose research that would be relevant to their interests and get funding and assistance for carrying it out. And then there's COSEE... the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence, which is an excellent mailing list to get on... it was one of their workshops that got me the ROV book. There are a huge number of resources out there, but shaping them into a Curriculum is kind of a trick! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted April 24, 2013 Share Posted April 24, 2013 A great starting point to learn about ROVs is the book Build Your Own Underwater Robot And Other Wet Projects (here). My son has constructed two of the ROVs in this book, recommends the more sophisticated one, the Sea Fox, which has bilge pumps. MATE competition has a K-4th grade category which is free to enter. Now you got me interested for next year's competition. The regionals (Monterey, California) were just over. My older saw the page and asked me to buy him a ROV :lol: What do you think about the Marine Biology book by Peter Castro and Michael Huber for self ed for me? I actually have the ROV book too! I'm hoping the Sea Fox gets done as a summer project before the fall schedule is in full swing (and while we have the neighborhood pool to test it in...) The competitions look tempting, but I think I'll not mention it to DS this year. I don't think the schedule can hold one more thing! LOL Did you end up making the ROV? I'll need hubby's help to make one with my boys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane in NC Posted April 24, 2013 Share Posted April 24, 2013 MATE competition has a K-4th grade category which is free to enter. Now you got me interested for next year's competition. The regionals (Monterey, California) were just over. My older saw the page and asked me to buy him a ROV :lol: What do you think about the Marine Biology book by Peter Castro and Michael Huber for self ed for me? Did you end up making the ROV? I'll need hubby's help to make one with my boys. I'm glad you found this thread! I had forgotten about it and could not remember the name of the ROV construction book when I was commenting on your newer thread. MATE is a very cool competition! I was unaware of the younger grades and will file that away in my brain that is a sieve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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