Why we care
Many in-service teachers lack sufficient support to integrate ocean and coastal acidification into their classrooms. Teaching multifaceted complex topics can be more effective through place-based and experiential learning. This project provides a hands-on science curriculum to students with limited access to educational resources and limited support at home.
What we will do
The Marine Science Institute (MSI)’s Ocean Acidification Science In Schools (OASIS) project, building on the long-standing relationship with Kennedy Middle School (KMS) in Redwood City, California will create a place-based, hands-on curriculum for ocean and coastal acidification. The program will reach 250 underrepresented 6th grade students from a primarily Hispanic/Latinx community. The team will curate a combination of six classroom activities, three outdoor experiences, and three evaluation activities led by MSI. The KMS teachers will lead a student project using local data as well as supplemental activities provided through NOAA.
Students will experience and build perspectives on their local watershed’s connection to the ocean, and the impact of coastal and ocean acidification. Each participant will spend 21 hours of contact time engaging in multiple hands-on learning modules. Local field experiences will include 6 in-class lab experiments to practice with the scientific method as well as water-based activities such as conducting a stream study, paddling a canoe for a wetlands study, and exploring the tidepools of the Pacific Coast. This comprehensive program aims to connect students the local marine environment and watershed. The activities to reduce marine debris in the watershed, conduct water quality surveys, and increase knowledge of coastal and ocean acidification and its effects on local organisms will empower students to promote awareness and take action.
All lessons will align to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
Benefits of our work
Underserved students will engage in a yearlong look at live data from local buoys, and learn how to communicate the data and ways to help reduce human impacts on ocean and coastal acidification. Teachers will receive a series of classroom-based activities that increase both educator and student ocean acidification literacy. Students will gain first-hand experience with local ocean environments, the scientific information collected used to inform decisions, and introduce them to these complex topics that support NOAA ocean literacy principles.
Investigators
Karen Peluso-Galaviz, Marine Science Institute
Image: Tide pools captured soon after sunrise at Half Moon Bay, California, USA. Credit: Jan Arendtsz (Flickr, Creative Commons)