Summary. Aquatic Adventures is an immersive, six-part program designed to introduce youth to careers in marine science through hands-on maker projects. Lessons include rescuing lost sensors, saving beached horseshoe crabs, and exploring bioluminescence with paper circuits.
A slide from Aquatic Adventures introducing the career Oceanographer to students.
The Problem. Aquatic Adventures was the first unit of curriculum I created after I completed version one of the Rec2Tech curriculum. I was asked to develop the next elementary Maker course and given the title 'Aquatic Adventures' to start with. Without much experience in life sciences beyond teaching middle school science, I learned as much as I could and leaned into my engineering background with career spotlights.
Another slide from Aquatic Adventures introducing the idea that horseshoe crabs cannot flip themselves over if they get beached.
The Goal. Though my experience with a topic like marine biology is limited, problem solving is the same no matter where you're looking. The goal with Aquatic Adventures was to create a unit of ocean-themed, problem-based learning activities with an accompanying slide deck that gets learners excited to solve problems in marine science.
A Digital Harbor Foundation social media post celebrating a great moment in the Aquatic Adventures class.
The Solutions. To accomplish this goal, I went searching for problems that could be associated with a set of careers in marine science. In one activity, learners explore the problem of saving beached horseshoe crabs with paper engineering. In another, learners rescue a sensor that's been lost at sea using paperclips. The final project is a Scratch game promoting conservation that utilizes a Makey Makey to turn their paper ecosystem dioramas into a game controller!
A sample from the 'Save the Horseshoe Crabs' lesson plan.
