I spent 3 weeks at the Vancouver Aquarium teaching in the wetlabs. It was an amazing experience and I got the change to work with so many amazing people. The place is built on the wonderful volunteers who come from all walks of life. Handling animals was truly as exciting as it was to learn from so many different people.
The wetlabs gave me the opportunity to see learning and to facilitate learning for students outside of the classroom setting. The students were clearly excited to be there and handle new animals. It was clear that handling these animals sparked many more questions from the students too. They were obviously invested in their learning and wanted to know more.
I also appreciated the conservation message that the Aquarium took the time to express after each lesson. Some ecosystems had garbage (a beer bottle, teapot, and some pipes) in them specifically to spark conversations about why those items were there. Additionally, one of the coordinators spoke about clean ups they had done in the past where the strangest things they found in the ocean were a wedding dress and a grand piano.
A California Sea Cucumber and the Spiny Lumpsucker fish.
Overall, the Vancouver Aquarium does amazing things for marine life and I am extremely grateful that I was lucky enough to spend a portion of my education degree there.
end to be little mice but when I opened the book to move the story forward most of them sat down. At this point it became clear that they were used to sitting while someone was reading a book, due to this I had the students sit throughout the rest of the lesson. Having them participate in some actions was fun; the actions were a mixture of ones I provided and ones they created. For example, I showed them how to hold their strawberry in one hand and cut it in half with the other but they showed me how they would guard their strawberry: some turned over and pretended it was under them, some put it in their pocket, some placed it behind themselves. Some parts became a verbal exercise over the actions as well – when asked how they would disguise their strawberry it was easier to share what they would do (these were answers like hide it under a blanket and use a ‘shinkerator’ on it, put it in a spiderman costume, and put in it a tomato costume to trick the bear). Integrating myself into the book resulted in the students giving me interesting looks. Every time the book mentioned the bear sniffing for strawberries I took on this role, some found it amusing while others looked a little confused as to if they were supposed to copy this action or just view it.