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Re: NFC: adopt-a-tank program
> The
> schools today have alot to teach our kids with so little time. Will they
> be able to squeeze any more into the day. This is some of the problems
> that I have run into. Not here to offend anyone just letting you know
> what is going on in Indiana. Back to lurking.
I remember donating most of my brackish water fish to one of several
small tanks in my high school biology classroom. Nothing was ever done
class-wise with the aquariums, and it was up to me to take care of that
tank (and sometimes the other ones) after school. It did, however,
introduce me to a small group of other students who's interest was
caught by the tank, or had tanks of their own at home. This led to quite
a few conversations over the years that were enjoyable and informative.
So setting up the tank at school wasn't entirely a lost cause.
I don't think anyone should set up a tank at a school and expect the
teacher to use it their lesson plan all the time, or even at all. Bill
is right about teachers having to do so much in so little time. It's
like packing ten pounds of [bad word] in a five pound bag, and there's
usualy no room left in it for a tank. At best, such a setup will
hopefully snare the interest of a few students and expose them to the
joys of fish keeping. If the opportunity exists to do so, discussing the
usefulness of an aquarium as a backdrop to certain lessons with a
teacher might help to get a little more use out of a tank than normal.
However, it won't be very helpful when the students are learning about
stuff like amino acids, internal organ systems, and cell structures.
An aquarium stocked with natives might also be more useful to the
school's ecology or conservation club, assuming the school has one. The
adult supervisors for these groups will probably find more use for an
Adopt-A-Tank project than the teachers in front of an actual class.
Tony Gustafson
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