In a classroom lab tucked away in the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Mount Madonna School (MMS) third, fourth and fifth grade students, sat on stools and eagerly donned virtual reality (VR) headsets and prepared for “underwater” exploration via a simulation of the kelp forest in 360-degree fashion, complete with fish and other marine life “swimming” by.
The VR activity was part of a broader lesson and lab activities on marine habitats, the interdependence of different species within the kelp forest environment and their importance to a healthy ocean ecosystem.
Later, as students toured the aquarium’s live exhibits, they “oohed and aahed” with excitement over the colorful jellyfish, penguins and shorebirds, and gently placed their fingertips along the smooth skin of the bat rays in the open touch pools.
Standing before a 90-foot window of glass in the aquarium’s largest exhibit, The Open Sea, students grew still and appeared awed as they watched the speeding tunas, schooling sardines and leisurely movements of passing green sea turtles.
As they took in the different tanks and exhibits, students watched for evidence and developed a food web to describe the movement of energy among plants and animals in the kelp forest environment A food web depicts the natural interconnection of food chains and is a graphic representation of what-eats-what in a given ecological community.
For third and fourth grade students, the aquarium visit was connected to their study of habitats. Fifth grade students, in addition to increasing their understanding of healthy ocean ecosystems, have picked Leatherback sea turtles for their year-long, cross-curricular environmental project. There are seven existing species of sea turtles, with three of the species now classified as endangered, and two of those species – Hawksbill and Kemp’s Ridley – are critically endangered.
“It is amazing that the Monterey Bay Aquarium puts together these rich learning programs to help students connect with an ecosystem that the students themselves have a direct impact on,” said fifth grade teacher Jessica Cambell. “Observing our third, fourth and fifth graders come together for this place-based learning experience, allows them to develop an empathetic connection to nature. In the education lab, students were awed at the intricacies of different creatures – from abalones to sea urchins – and came to understand that each species has a role in balancing the ecosystem.”
