Marine biology: Follow along?
Jul 23rd, 2009 by lapazfarm
So today is the day of the big reveal of the project I have been working so long and hard at.
Superboy has asked me to create a marine biology/ oceanography course for him, so that’s what I’ve been doing.
Then I thought that since I am going to the trouble of creating this course, I might as well share with all of my wonderful readers. So I decided I’d blog it so that others can follow along if they wish and maybe someone can benefit from my work. With this idea in mind I created Fieldwork, a new blog specifically for this course and future hands-on science courses I create for Superboy.
Let me tell you a bit about Fieldwork.
If you know anything at all about us here at Lapaz, you know the course has got to be text-book free, hands-on, real-life science. It’s not your everyday science course, with a lot of textbook and an occasional little bit of lab to dress it up. No way!! This course is one whose very foundation is fieldwork–getting out there, getting wet, and solving problems. Sure, there will be some reading of books and websites involved, but there will also be many hands-on activities every week, plus big blocks of time devoted entirely to doing student-created projects and experiments.
Learning science by doing science. What a concept!
So if you are interested in a challenging, hands-on, high school level marine biology/oceanography course, please check out Fieldwork. It’s a work in progress at this point– very much unfinished, and you can expect some changes and revisions still to anything that is there, but I should have the full course done before long.
And if you like what you see, and have access to the ocean, drop me a note and let me know if you want to join us. We will be starting the course ourselves the first week of september. If you join us, I’ll put your name up on the blogroll and we can share our progress as we explore the fascinating world of marine biology together! The more the merrier!
Oh, now this just makes me so happy. As a dedicated unschooler, who would love to make programs like this for her kids, you give me hope that in the future I’ll be able to. Right now, at their age, it would be the death knell to their interest, but when they’re your kids ages, maybe I’ll be able to? Here’s to hoping.
Would a large lake qualify? Like Superior? It’s only 2 hours away….
Completely jealous….
this is making me wish I had a high schooler!! my oldest isn’t quite there yet, but I will be reading along your new blog. Sounds great!
We don’t have an ocean near either, just 2 lakes. We are going to the Atlantic Ocean in September, Florida and Bahamas…any suggestions for fun and educational stuff to do??
Oh my, this is SO fabulously amazing! I would have LOVED something like this in high school – actually I would love it now. My kids are little and the ocean is far away, but I know you all will have a wonderful time with this, and I will really enjoy reading about your adventures. Thanks for sharing this.
Wow, amazing! What a wonderful project! I sure will follow you (from over the ocean) in your science experiences! Thanks!
I would so join you if we were near the ocean! My son REALLY needs hands-on science exploration instead of textbooks so I’m going to try to get ideas from the course you are creating. This year I’m going to let him use a series of books we have called Exploring Ecosystems since they are full of real fieldwork. Thanks for making your work public!
I am very interested in doing this with my 12 year old son. He recently told me he wants to be a marine biologist so he can be a diver at an aquarium. We live in Northwest Washington, so we have access to an ocean, but a very different one from us. I will run this by my son, and let him peruse the website. This looks like fun!
YOu are just amazing! Very cool, my dear. WHile this isn’t our focus this year, we will certainly follow along and glean for future years.
This is really neat. I’m so impresses with your plans for the first few weeks. And wow that you made a website for others to use as well!
I have quite a bit of training in marine biology although I haven’t done much with it lately or professionally. (I design water and wastewater plants and stormwater facilities.) I actually have an artificial reef named after me on the local sea charts. I permitted and built it as a teen. (oh how I would have loved a course like this when I was a kid!) I have two kids in the right age for this course, although only one that would be interested in participating. I am trying to decide if we could attampt this since I work full time and we also have two toddlers. Maybe we could strech each week into a month.
How very generous of you to share this. It looks wonderful!
Looking forward to watching it all unfold.
Sounds wonderful! Unfortunately Xander, at 6 months, is probably not ready for this but I’ll take notes. This is something I would have loved to do as a teenager.
It’s going to be great T, thanks for the unveiling
)
Hmm…I could probably contribute a thing or two.
I’ll bet you could!!!
Theresa, Have you ever seen “The Shape of Life” on PBS http://www.pbs.org/kcet/shapeoflife/ We used used this a few years ago when we studied the Kingdom Animalia and I would highly recommend it if you can find in on Netflix or through your library system. It is a series of 8 shows and one show is devoted to each of 8 of the major phyla. The website has companion materials for various ages from HS to preschool. Virtually every show includes marine life, especially those devoted to Porifera, Echinodermata, Cnidarians, and Platyhelminthes. It is an intelligent discussion of the evolution of life and the various systems. Even if we aren’t doing marine bio, we will be following along
Yes, I have heard of that, Marjorie but have not seen it. Thanks for the reminder. It does sound like it would be a great resource!
We just finished our Marine Biology year and it was a great adventure as I know yours will be too. We had the pleasure of visiting quite a few different marine habitats which made it fun to compare.
Oregon coast vs Hawaiian ocean and stuff like that.
One aspect that I was surprised about is that most scope and sequences for Marine Biology didnt’ include much about marine birds and when we had our field trips, the birds were always most interesting. Just something that I thought I would mention in case SB notices birds like my guys did. I found a field guide to shore birds that helped us out a lot.
I hope you have a wonderful year!
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
This looks fantastic! My son will be 12 in a few weeks, and entering the middle school stage, but I might tweak this for him. BTW, a cyber friend I’ve known for 13 years is on the staff of Animal Diversity Web. That is such a cool project.
Alas, no ocean here ….
But, it looks like an amazing course.
We are in Perth Western Australia. Last summer, we spent an average of 3 hours a day watching the kids train on the beach. This will be a fantastic way of learning ABOUT the ocean, instead of just exercising on it. And will give the kids another excuse to go diving too