Hello,
My name is Chris Saunders I am a
science teacher at Venture Academy located in Marriott-Slaterville or some
people might know it better as north Ogden. We are a charter school that uses
expeditionary learning. A major portion of our
curriculum is integrated into long-term, deep study of topics. We call these
long-term studies Learning Expeditions. We use the term
“expedition†metaphorically. Lewis and Clark went, not on a trip, but an expedition--an
incredible and unforgettable journey in which they met challenges, solved
problems, and arrived at a destination that seemed unattainable. Using
the term “expedition†in the phrase, “learning expedition,†adds the sense that
this learning experience will not just be a "lesson", or a "unit"
to cover. It will be instead a deep, wide, and engaging learning
experience that may take anywhere from several weeks to several months to
accomplish.
For being a relatively small middle school, Venture’s 6th to
8th offers an impressive array of elective offerings that give students the
opportunity to pursue their interests. They also provide teachers with
opportunities to teach courses in which they have a particular interest.
Teachers often make use of local resources (nature, experts, and fieldwork) to
enrich the experiences.
As
stated in the previous paragraph we as teachers get to teach courses that
interest us as teachers. I have been keeping some sort of aquarium
throughout my life both salt and freshwater aquariums and I just taught an
elective that I called “Tanked†in which the students got the opportunity to
learn about setting up aquariums, this term they got to set up a 80 gallon
freshwater planted tank.
As
fun as it was setting up this tank not all the students got to be involved and
so for my next term that I teach this I would like to do smaller tanks so that
each student would get a chance to be involved. The next time I would be
teaching this will actually be in January and I want to focus just on Marine
aquariums in particular reef tanks as the students will get a better
understanding of a ecosystem in a new light. I would like to get 8 2-3 gallon tanks that I could have the students
set up with easy corals and a fish or shrimp. For this process we can bring in
experts to teach the students better then I could about lighting, water
quality, substrate, and so on. So in conclusion I would like to ask and see if
anybody could help in any way be it your time to come and talk to the students
and be an expert or if you have a small tank/ fish or coral lying around that
you are not using or want to rehome and would be willing to donate it to a worthy
cause. I know that this is far away but I thought I would put it out there so
if any of you have any ideas for me to go about this that would be amazing.
Thanks,
Chris Saunders