Coral Reef Ecosystems: Elementary Collection
Sat, Dec 01, 2012 2:32 PM
Collection Review: Coral Reef Ecosystems
Being that I have always loved the ocean, I love to end my school year by teaching students about marine biology. This science collection on coral reefs is an amazing resource to use with your elementary students, and even your middle and high school students too. In Miami-Dade County Public Schools, one of our Next Generation Sunshine State Standards/Common Core Standards in science is to teach children about the complexity of ecosystems and how they are designed (from individual to population to community to ecosystem). Having students learn about coral reef ecosystems will not only pique their interest, but the majority of the concepts they learn they will be able to relate/apply to similar environments/biomes.
This collection focuses on many different factors that deal with coral reef ecosystems, and gives teachers ideas on how to better teach and facilitate the information, like through vivid photography and videos, as stated in one of the articles titled, Journey to the Reef. Five out the of the nine items in this collection, I was very familiar with because I completed them during my “Coral Reef SciPack.” I like how the collection not only discusses the reef ecosystem itself and where habitats similar to these (tropical environments) are found between 30 degrees North latitude and 30 degrees South, but it also goes into the fact that these ecosystems are in great danger as climate change has affected and will continue to affect the reefs if measures are not taken to stop them. I think it’s important for students to not only learn about climate change/global warming but understand that it is real and happening! Teaching about emissions and how carbon dioxide, methane gas, and nitrous oxide can hold the sun’s heat for long periods of time, shows the students that it is a fact. This is also a great topic for students because you can integrate the Great Barrier Reef and teach the students how the Kyoto Protocol, a legislative protocol has been established by the Australian Government, along with 191 other countries (the U.S. not being one of them), have agreed to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions.
I also like how the collection includes three different symposia archives on climate change, to better increase teacher knowledge that can later be transmitted to the students. Overall, I choose this collection because it is an area that I love learning about and teaching. I thought the collection was very cohesive, useful, and informational.