Re: Planted tank for biology lessons

[Christopher Newell <newellcr at yahoo_com>]

JoAnn wrote "I would like to use a planted aquarium as
the basis for most of the hands-on/lab work.  I
believe that a planted aquarium population can contain
representatives of many different phyla which the
students can study while learning about classification
and diversity in the natural world.  Most of the
typical plant biology topics (photosynthesis,
reproduction, plant cells, nutrients) could be covered
using aquatic plants, I imagine.  Similarly for animal
biology.  Our tanks typically have helpful bacteria,
single-celled algae and other representatives of the
living world."

JoAnn,

Cool!  This is a wonderful idea.  The aquarium club I
belong to (Motor City Aquarium Society) has had
similar ideas over the years about developing a couple
of programs that would be appropriate for school
“lessons”.  Unfortunately, we haven’t had the skills
(or time or effort for that matter) to develop some
programs for school talks that ventured past an
introduction to fish keeping.  

The planted tank is a great laboratory for such
studies.  Certainly, there has to be someone who has
prepared some focused lessons using an aquarium as a
lab activity.  We just need to find these folks.  I
have put out some feelers to see if someone has heard
of some teaching materials.  Maybe there is a high
school biology teachers user list somewhere?  

If you do manage to find some teaching materials,
would you be kind enough to post a message to this
list?

Thanks,

Chris


=====
newellcr at yahoo_com
http://home.att.net/~c.r.newell/

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